


Project Teahouse

by agent_florida



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Aftercare, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Anal Sex, BDSM, Brothels, Civil War, Crossdressing, Espionage, F/M, Incest, M/M, Massage, Oral Sex, Roleplay, S&M, Tattoos, Threesome, Threesome - F/M/M, Twincest, Unrequited Love, crack ships, starring delta and sigma as gay dads
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-02
Updated: 2011-06-13
Packaged: 2018-01-15 22:59:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 38,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1322458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agent_florida/pseuds/agent_florida
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A brothel is a highly lucrative business, especially when your clients happen to be among royalty. The youngest whore, though, has a growing awareness that nothing is what it seems, and he’s determined to find out the truth – without losing his virginity…</p><p>ORPHANED @ 14/?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ia

**Author's Note:**

> Our players are introduced, and Sigma throws a mild hissy fit.

“Ah, Count Connecticut, it  _is_  a pleasure to see you.”  
  
He had finally arrived at the best brothel in the city, and he was surprised with what he found. On the outside, it was a large mansion, well-endowed with space, and the style lent it a certain amount of respectability. Inside, instead of the standard whores reclining on their cushions with their opium haze clouding out the features of both people and architecture, this place was immaculate. The foyer was large and open, elegantly adorned in only the best but not gaudily so, and a large double staircase swept up to the second floor, where the Count assumed the client rooms would be. Beyond the staircase, there was a doorway that led to an open-air courtyard, and it was a delight to see sunlight on the grass and paving stones. But his eye came to a halt just before him, where a select group of prostitutes was standing, at-ease, eyes down, in a perpetual half-bow.  
  
“Spare me, Councillor.” The man who had addressed him was, for lack of a better word, oily, and it was truly distasteful for a man of the count’s stature to be doing business with a merchant of his reputation. He did, however, stoop to having his hand shaken, and he quashed his impulse to immediately wipe his palm onto his adorned jacket. Instead, he gestured to the prostitutes before him. “These are the best in your employ?”  
  
“I have been told so by several clients before you, my lord,” the Councillor assured him, “and they are our top earners. Feel free to inspect them at your leisure.”  
  
The Count grunted his approval and stepped forward. The six prostitutes snapped their heads up, at attention, and murmured “m’lord” in near-unison. The first young man in line looked to be the oldest, but could be no older than twenty-five: his platinum-blond hair looked white in the light of the room, and his green eyes seemed to follow CT’s every movement. His green jacket, with its gold mock-epaulets and brass buttons, only served to make him look stronger, though his body was on the slight side; the cut of his trousers emphasized the lines of his legs. “Your name, boy?” CT asked him, approaching as close as he dared and running a hand through that fine blond hair.  
  
“I am to be called Delta, my lord,” he said quietly, his voice even and low.  
  
“An excellent choice – should you choose him,” the Councillor confirmed. “He is well-trained and exceedingly professional. I must inform you, however, that his rates are the highest.”  
  
The Count withdrew his hand as if it had been burned. A specialty to indulge in later, he promised himself. The next in line was a young man who also had green eyes, though less intense than Delta’s, and a mop of unruly, curly brown hair. His outfit was more formal, but worn with less care: a black sportcoat and slacks, as might be found amongst the more dressy clothing of the bourgeois class, with an untucked dark green shirt and loosened black tie. Above his collar, below his left ear, a tattoo showed, looking like a hangman’s gallows. The cling of his clothing left little to the imagination, which naturally made the Count’s imagination run wild with possibilities. “And what are you called?”  
  
“Gamma – your  _lordship_.” His heavy sarcasm laced through his odd pronunciation, and behind the words the Count could hear a distinctive clink of a tongue piercing against teeth.  
  
“Our more…  _imaginative_  customers choose this one for… games, things of that nature,” the Councillor said delicately.  
  
Interesting. Perhaps one to set aside for later, if his rates weren’t exorbitant; the piercing was tempting. Not tempting enough for this visit, though, and so the Count moved along to the next in line. He looked to be a timid boy, gray eyes hiding underneath a mass of ash-brown hair, and the expression on his face was terrified as CT continued to inspect him. He was dressed conservatively, in a gray turtleneck and slacks, as nondescript as possible, and he appeared to be trembling as the Count continued to look him over. “Name?” The boy didn’t answer; the Count raised his voice. “Your name, please!”  
  
“Theta isn’t deaf, merely mute,” the Councillor clarified. “As docile and submissive as they come, m’lord, and he’s able to keep a secret.”  
  
“Mm.” He was lovely, but CT couldn’t make a decision without looking over the rest of the line-up. The next prostitute had rich, nut-brown skin and glossy black hair, and was adorned with a black corset, the most extravagant of plum-purple evening gowns slipping off slim shoulders, and the finest jewels money could buy. The overall effect, though, was not one of gaudiness, but of self-possession – the clothes and ornaments were worn with grace. The look was completed with a black parasol, held in lace-gloved hands with slim fingers. “Hello, sweetheart,” he said genially, finally falling into honey-brown eyes softened by long black eyelashes. “And who might you be?”  
  
“Sigma, if it please your lordship.” The voice was unmistakably masculine, even though the figure was garbed in woman’s clothes, and the surprise was so great that CT could do nothing but stare, open-mouthed, at the extent of the deception.  
  
“Yes, we often get that reaction,” the Councillor chuckled to himself. “He’s good for much more, though. He’s very…” He paused, putting a finger to his chin. “Creative,” he settled on.  
  
“Ah.” The promise was there, but CT was still too disconcerted for an hour with Sigma. Wrapping his mind around the dualities was asking too much of a quick lay. The next whore seemed rough – his face shone with piercings in his eyebrows and lower lip, his blue eyes icy enough to chill the Count. His orange-red hair stood on end almost like a flame, but even this could not distract from the several odd piercings in both his ears. His open vest and low-slung trousers, both in black leather, only emphasized the paleness of his skin. He was lean and nicely muscled, freckles on display on his arms and chest and stomach, and piercings even glinted from both nipples and the backs of his hands. The blazing hair on his head continued again on his stomach, leading in a wild, curly trail pointing decidedly downward towards an obvious bulge in the tight leather. “And you?” the Count asked brusquely.  
  
“Omega.” Not so much as a ‘my Lord’ or a ‘your lordship’ to acknowledge CT’s rank, and he was even standing impudently, feet splayed wide, hands on his out-thrust hips.  
  
“I apologize for his disrespect, m’lord, but it’s part of the charm,” the Councillor smoothed over. “He only knows three things: pain, pleasure… and power.”  
  
He was an interesting specimen, the count had to admit. As he stepped closer, though, he could nearly feel menace radiating from Omega, a conspicuous amount of heat coming from his skin. CT could tell that he was glaring, and he began to feel slightly uneasy. “Dangerous?” he asked the Councillor.  
  
“For the right price,” the merchant assured him.  
  
As the Count looked closer, he could see that, hidden beneath the liberal smattering of freckles on his shoulders, Omega’s skin was laced with scars and bite marks; a few yellowing bruises were lingering around the base of his neck. “And what kind of price do people pay for damaged goods?”  
  
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the Councillor shrug. “It comes with the territory.”  
  
Omega was still glaring at him; CT thought better of hiring him and moved on to the last whore in the lineup. This one surely couldn’t have been legal, but he was beautiful nonetheless: a shag of black hair fell into his too-blue eyes, and there seemed to be a permanently wry curl to his lips. He was small, but not petite, and there was something in the way his arms were crossed over his chest and the way he held his chin that gave him a regal air. He was wearing a schoolboy’s uniform of a blue sweatervest, white blouse, and khaki slacks; the shirtsleeves were rolled up to his elbows, emphasizing his large hands. Though he still had to grow into being a man, he was showing significant promise. He didn’t wait to be asked to give his name: “Epsilon, m’lord.”  
  
“How old is he?” CT breathed, letting a hand come out to touch the boy’s face.  
  
“Not yet of age,” the Councillor confirmed. “He has been entrusted to us by an anonymous benefactor who has so far been generous in regards to our… business. The benefactor’s only request was that the boy be well taken care of until he came of age, at which point he would be entirely at our mercy. The Director, of course, does not condone illicit liaisons, so the boy is still a virgin. There is an auction running until his sixteenth birthday, some three months from now, and his first client will be the highest bidder. If you wish to bid, we will need to see sufficient proof of funds.”  
  
The Count gaped at him. “ _That_  expensive? He’s only a boy.”  
  
“He is a virgin,” the Councillor reminded him. “A  _male_  virgin. We have certification from his benefactor attesting to his authenticity.”  
  
Throughout their conversation, Epsilon himself had shown no sign that he recognized he was being discussed. He still held his head high, retaining his dignity, and CT marveled again at how royal he looked. “Is he deaf?”  
  
“Everything is perfectly intact,” the Councillor assured him. “He has very good discipline.”  
  
“I see.” So this one was off-limits. Delta was price-prohibitive for the moment, Omega was too off-putting, and Sigma was too wild for his needs tonight, which left only Gamma and Theta to choose from. And as much as CT wanted to find out how that tongue piercing felt – and how tattooed he might be under his clothes, given the mark on his neck – he needed to leave something else to discover here, have some excuse to come back to this place. “What are Theta’s hourly rates?”  
  
“Pocket change, I’m sure, for someone of your means, m’lord.” After some haggling, they settled on a price, and the rest of the prostitutes were dismissed. “Allow me to show you to your room…”  
  
The Count held out an arm for Theta to take; the whore clung to it like a child, nearly shaking with what CT presumed was fear. The Councillor seemed to be unperturbed, though, and showed them to a sparse room. The only furniture in the room was a bed made up with crisp, clean white sheets, a wooden chest at the foot of the bed, and a divan; the only other adornments were a large window, letting in copious sunlight, and a plush rug covering the wood planking of the floor. “Alert me when my hour is up,” the Count told the Councillor, and he shut the door behind them, leaving himself alone with Theta.  
  
\--  
  
“Sigma!” the Councillor called the moment he was out of earshot from Count Connecticut’s room.  
  
A flush darkened his cheeks. “Won’t you excuse me,” he murmured to his fellow prostitutes as he swept towards the double staircase. “Yes, sir?”  
  
“I thought I told you never to speak in front of a potential client,” the Councillor hissed as Sigma fell in by his side. “It ruins the overall effect… though I do admit that it is hard to disguise this,” he pointed out, pulling down the jeweled ribbon around Sigma’s neck to reveal the young man’s prominent adam’s apple.  
  
“The Count asked for my name; I had to give it,” Sigma said, ignoring the hand closing around his neck. “It would have been…  _unladylike_ , for me to refuse to speak.”  
  
“Hmph.” The Councillor was still obviously displeased, even if Sigma was right; he pulled his hand away, unable to come up with a swift rebuke. Sigma could tell that his pimp longed to hit him across the face, but any sign of wear would have labeled him as damaged goods, and the Director very much disliked losing a potential transaction to something that could have been so easily prevented. Instead of hitting him, though, the Councillor came up with another reason to rebuke him. “I thought I told you to prepare for tonight’s client.”  
  
Sigma tossed his hair out of his face and snapped a hand to his hip. “Is this not up to your specifications?”  
  
“More kohl,” the Councillor muttered. “And is this really your best dress?” He sampled the fabric between his fingertips. “Coarse, for silk. I expected velour.”  
  
Sigma snatched his skirt away from the Councillor’s oily grasp. “Most of my others are  _ruined_ ,” he complained. “And no, not the fixable kind of ruined. You ought to teach those  _dogs_  a little respect. Seams busted, fabric in shreds, stains everywhere – it’s disgraceful.” He sniffed pointedly. “If you would only stoop to buying better fabric, I could make some absolute  _confections_ , but as it is, you’ve relegated me to using the curtains. Curtains!” he said again, making his disgust clear.  
  
“Sigma, we have already had this discussion.” Not a good sign: when the Councillor’s voice was that icy, punishment was in order. “Retire to your chambers. Kohl your eyes, and for God’s sake put on some perfume. Your client is expected to arrive at any moment, and I won’t have you looking less than edible.”  
  
Sigma made a mock-bow, calling attention to how splendidly he was dressed with a lace-gloved hand. “I am perfectly delectable just the way I am; now, tell me why you’re so uptight.” It was too fun to needle the Councillor, even though he usually paid dearly for his smart mouth. “Is the Director coming for inspection, or is this client particularly rich and picky?”  
  
“Go,  _now_ , or no new clothes for a month.”  
  
Sigma glared at the Councillor. The Councillor glared back. He was making it very clear that he wouldn’t budge on this, and it left Sigma no choice but to gather his skirt in his hands, turn around in a huff, and march back to his own room to make up his face.  
  
The whores’ quarters were on the first floor; as Sigma retreated to his vanity, he could hear the distinctive thump of a bedframe against a wall coming from the room above his. It was such a common sound that he hardly noticed, but it bothered him tonight, because whatever was going on upstairs, it was vigorous enough to travel through the walls and rattle Sigma’s cosmetics. It was a good thing, then, that he’d perfected applying his own kohl without having to look into the shaking mirror. He never understood why the Councillor insisted on it, since his eyelashes were plenty to make himself look feminine, but it was either this or… He looked over to his pathetically empty wardrobe and sighed.  
  
A little rouge to his lips and cheeks and he pronounced himself finished; a floral spray to complete the deception, and he flounced back to the foyer. The Councillor was already deep in conversation with another potential client, a huge man wearing mostly white garb. His shoulders were covered by a yellow half-cape, and his gloves, though mismatched, were both in buttery brown leather. The most striking thing about him, though, was the simple gold diadem woven through his long russet hair.  
  
The Councillor noticed Sigma first. “Ah, here we are, sir, the one you requested.” He had a weak, watery smile on his face – intimidated, then, by this client of theirs.  
  
Sigma quickly saw why when the huge man turned around. Even though he’d never seen this man in person before, he was intimately familiar to him; his portrait was everywhere, his profile embossed on coins, his stamp on nearly everything in this country. This was Prince Maine, next in line to inherit the throne, and he was much more intimidating in person. “Your royal highness!” Sigma whispered reflexively, sinking into an oft-practiced curtsey.  
  
He could hear heavy footsteps approaching him, but he dared not rise, not unless asked. The boots that came into his vision were of the same leather as the gloves, finely crafted, well-worn and supple. Then a broad hand with large fingers cupped around Sigma’s chin; he followed its movement, rising from the curtsey to look into the prince’s face. His appearance could only be described as rugged: he had a chiseled jaw, a sharp nose that looked like it had been broken more than once, and surprisingly warm brown eyes. When he spoke, it sounded as soft and sensuous as velvet over skin, an affectionate tenor with a slight spike of desire. “Good evening, lovely.”  
  
Sigma swooned.


	2. Ib

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our Count solicits a certain mute, and an unexpected royal pays a visit.

True to description, Theta was docile, and he responded well to orders. Underneath those nondescript clothes, his body was well-built, with defined collarbones and hipbones. CT groaned into the whore’s now-bare shoulder as he palmed his pert ass, crushing Theta’s crotch against his. There was a slight scent clinging there, something like soap and smoke, and he tested Theta’s skin with his tongue – as delicious as it smelled.  
  
“Yeah, you like that?” The whore didn’t even moan at the Count’s touches, but at least he was reciprocal, kissing at his neck and grazing his fingertips against his back. “Mn, yeah.” The rush of having complete power over this – this  _boy_  – was intoxicating, especially since the whore’s touches were unbearably teasing. He tried out an order. “Strip.”  
  
His trousers came off much easier than his shirt, and CT let out a gasp of surprise – these whores wore no undergarments, and he was staring at nothing but naked, nubile boy. “Come here,” he ordered, voice low with need. “Take my clothes off – oh, yeah, like that,” he sighed as his jacket dropped to the floor, his shirt coming untucked from his breeches. “Mouth on my neck… hnn.” This one was good, almost too good, and the Count had a feeling he had chosen well when Theta started worshiping the bare skin of his chest as he worked at undoing the laces of his breeches.  
  
It was when the whore’s mouth dawdled for too long against CT’s hip that he couldn’t stand it anymore. “Well, if you’re not going to talk, I can still make your mouth useful.” His member was curled, half-hard, against his thigh, and he took it in his hand. “Suck.”  
  
To his surprise, Theta took hold of his wrist and wrenched his hand away, but he quickly realized why as the whore took him in throat-deep. CT could do nothing but grasp onto Theta’s hair as his head began to bob, his spittle slickening the Count’s hardening shaft. “You know,” CT admitted in a grunt, “for being mute, you’re especially good with your mouth.”  
  
The whore took it as a sign of encouragement, only delving faster, but the Count pulled his head back by the ears. “Mouth wherever you want it – all over me – ” and how did he know to flick his tongue over a nipple like that, it didn’t matter, “hands in my hair – kiss my  _mouth_ , boy…”  
  
It was an exceptionally sweet kiss, for a whore. There seemed to be some real passion behind it, and CT was beginning to understand why this was the best, and most expensive, brothel in the city. When the Count spread Theta’s cheeks, a fingertip searching for his hole, he pressed himself closer and nipped CT’s lip, not hard enough to be called a bite but hard enough to make him shiver. CT could feel Theta’s hips thrust back against his hand, and he laughed, dark and dangerous, as he licked the shell of the boy’s ear. “I’d call you a slut, but I think we both know you’re not,  _whore_ …”  
  
Theta didn’t whimper as the Count fingered his hole, didn’t flinch when the Count threw him onto the bed, didn’t even scream when the Count forced his knees to his shoulders and buried himself balls-deep inside of him. “Mm, I  _like_  you,” CT hummed as he thrust against Theta. “No squealing, no complaining. Nobody asking me questions and demanding the answers. I hate that,” he muttered after a particularly violent shove, “I  _hate_  it, I  _hate_  it…”  
  
It was only too easy to make Theta bear the brunt of his anger with the rest of the world, and the whore was so beautiful with that sheen of sweat on him, his eyes half-lidded, mouth open in an O. The Count could see him touching himself with a free hand, and he wondered for the briefest of seconds if the whores were actually allowed to pleasure themselves before a full-blown scene of Theta rubbing his cock made itself manifest in his mind, pushing aside all other attempts at coherent thought. He was so close, so close…  
  
He came with a yell, and when he came back to himself he pulled out from Theta. He looked so vulnerable now, his wide gray eyes boring into CT, and for a moment, the Count almost felt bad for what he’d done. But then he checked his pocket watch and realized, with no small amount of glee, that he still had a good twenty minutes in this room. He wouldn’t be able to fuck the boy again, but he could still be pleasured. “C’mere,” he slurred through his post-orgasm haze, dragging Theta’s body off the bed and then sitting so that both his legs dangled off the bed, Theta between them. “You know what to do,” he said. “Suck, whore.”  
  
\--  
  
Sigma was almost breathless as the prince led him to the most posh bedroom in the house, and it wasn’t just due to the corset. He was in the presence of royalty, a man who had offered his arm to him as if he were a true woman, a man whose arms beneath his shirt felt powerful and muscular, a man who couldn’t stop smiling down on him with that grin that was like sunshine.  
  
“After you,” he said gently, letting Sigma enter before he shut the door behind the two of them. “There. That’s better. Privacy for the rest of the evening, right?” He pulled off his gloves, one by one, letting them fall on the floor.  
  
“Y – yes, your royal highness.” Sigma was surprised to find himself stuttering. He was a professional, and he’d had clients this handsome, or this rich, or this kind before – but none of them had possessed all three, and certainly not with that extra streak of hot lust that was coiling within him.  
  
“No need to be so formal – not here,” the prince said gently, stepping close to Sigma and taking his chin in his hand again. “You can call me Maine.”  
  
“Yes, sir. Maine,” Sigma corrected himself. It was hard to think straight: he’d been drilled in the proper forms of address since he was small, and it would have been hard to unlearn it under other circumstances, let alone when he was under the spell of a man like this.  
  
“Here. Will this help?” The prince took his diadem off, laying it on one of the tables. Sigma flushed hotly when he realized that it was resting close to some of his kinkiest toys, but Maine’s thumb smoothed against his cheek. “No need to be embarrassed… but we won’t be using those tonight.”  
  
“Why?” Sigma asked breathlessly.  
  
“There’ll be time enough for that,” the prince said. “Right now, though, all I want is you.”  
  
“Me?” He chided himself mentally; he must have been losing his edge if he was reduced to such silly questions.  
  
“Have you seen yourself?” Maine wrapped an arm around him, right where his bustle met his corset, and drew Sigma closer. Sigma hadn’t realized how tall he was until he had to bend his back, pushing his hips toward him, to see his face. “You’re beautiful.”  
  
Their first kiss was unlike anything Sigma had ever experienced before. Other clients would paw at him as if he were a woman, or slobber all over him, or shove their tongues into his mouth. Maine, though, simply put his lips to Sigma’s and held himself there, softly, tenderly, without showing any fear. Sigma reflexively threw his arms around Maine’s shoulders; he wanted something to cling to, so he could remember that this was really happening. It was a woman’s action, and Maine was kissing him so gently, but it felt so wrong to keep up this deception in front of the highest-ranking member of the nobility to ever step into the Teahouse. So he broke off the kiss, nestling his cheek into the crook of Maine’s neck. “I’m… a man. You know that, right?” he whispered, afraid to say the words.  
  
“I don’t care what you are,” Maine said forcefully, pulling back Sigma so that they could see eye-to-eye again. “All I know is, you’re beautiful. And I’ve never wanted something – some _one_  – so badly in my entire life.”  
  
Sigma tried to remind himself that Maine probably said this to all the whores he wooed, probably had some pre-fed line so he could make the ladies love him, but it was hard to keep all that in his head when Maine began to kiss him again. He had to crane his neck, but he didn’t want to stop the contact; it felt too good, and his head was swimming. His hands had ideas of their own, his fingers tangling in Maine’s hair, and he began to regret the gloves: he couldn’t feel the silky texture very well through the lace. When Maine broke the contact, it was only to plant a kiss on Sigma’s cheek, followed by more on his jaw as his hands came up around Sigma’s shoulders.  
  
His neck suddenly felt exposed, and as Maine drew back, Sigma could see the jeweled ribbon that had covered his adam’s apple dwarfed in those large hands. “You don’t need ornaments,” he murmured, drawing close again and starting to kiss his way down his neck, removing each of his necklaces one by one. “Not to impress me. You outshine every jewel you’re wearing…”  
  
Sigma couldn’t hear the rest over the sound of his own sigh; his neck was bare now, one side warmed by one of Maine’s huge palms, the other by the hot, wet feel of his tongue. He was surprised at how considerate and patient his prince was acting – any other man would have pounced by now, chasing up his skirts and not even bothering to see him naked before fucking him senseless. Instead, Maine was unwrapping one of Sigma’s arms from his neck, a thumb on his pulse point, and Sigma buried his face in Maine’s chest as his prince’s mouth moved from his neck to his fingertips, catching his teeth on every seam at the end of the fingers of the lace glove and prying them off, bit by bit.  
  
“You smell so nice,” Sigma thought he could hear Maine mutter, but then the glove was discarded on the floor and Maine took one of his fingers into his mouth – and sucked it. Sigma moaned, the sensation going straight to his groin, and his knees started to give way before one of the prince’s strong arms caught him around the waist and kept him from sagging. “So gorgeous, watching you come undone,” Maine murmured against the palm of his hand.  
  
His mouth made a trail on the inside of Sigma’s arm, a hand slipping into his hair. His other hand was working at getting the other glove off, and with the part of his brain that was still working, Sigma felt he had to protest. “You really don’t have to, I mean…”  
  
“Oh, but I want to,” he murmured, his breath now ghosting across one of Sigma’s collarbones. And Sigma started to understand as he felt the laces on his corset begin to give way. He gasped, not only because of the sweet release from such a strict confinement, but because Maine seemed to actually care about treating him gently – like he was a person and not just a whore, like he was delicate and fragile and breakable instead of sturdy and hardy and strong. Maine pulled the corset over his head, and he was able to breathe freely for a moment before being swept away in those arms again. Huge hands worked to undo the buttons holding his dress together, and a sweet mouth captured his earlobe and licked the shell of his ear.  
  
The dress ended up in a purple puddle on the floor, and before Sigma could grasp what was going on, Maine had lifted him by the backs of his thighs and slung him over the bed. In no time at all, the prince was kissing along his now-bare chest while pulling off his petticoats, teeth nipping against his ribs as he pried off Sigma’s embroidered slippers. “I – ah – Maine,” he sighed, hands still latched behind his neck, “you still have your clothes on…”  
  
“This isn’t about me,” the prince murmured, voice husky with lust. He peeled away the last petticoat, and Sigma was naked, vulnerable, shivering with excitement and shaking from fear.  
  
He’d never been this defenseless before. Sigma took pride in wielding his sexuality like a weapon, taking down and destroying everyone and everything in his path. He was used to being the aggressor, not the damsel in distress – no matter what his dress might indicate. Now, though, he was reduced to this, mewling when Prince Maine’s mouth enveloped his cock, moaning as those huge hands kneaded his ass, keening when the prince’s tongue lapped along his length.  
  
“So beautiful,” the prince whispered, breath heating Sigma’s hip. Sigma was powerless to an assault like this. He knew he was attractive, used that fact to his advantage, based his entire income and livelihood on it, but having it acknowledged so openly took the strength out of him. His fingers clawed at the cape still hanging on Maine’s shoulders, and it fell to the floor before Sigma worked on the fastenings of Maine’s shirt.  
  
The prince shrugged his way out of it, and Sigma could finally see Maine as he was meant to be seen: nothing but strong muscles, broad shoulders, rock-solid arms. “Wow,” Sigma breathed, his palms smoothing over his prince’s skin, catching the radiant heat from his rippling abs.  
  
His fingers slipped closer to the laces of his breeches, but Maine caught his hands by the wrists, circling them with a finger and thumb before pinning them over his head. “I’m in charge,” he insisted, voice charged with insane sexual energy. He climbed onto the bed, his body sliding against Sigma’s but not crushing him, and the only thing Sigma could do was hold onto his sanity as the bulge in Maine’s breeches nudged against his bare cock. His hips snapped up in an attempt to keep contact as his prince pulled away, and Sigma kissed the insides of his arms, the only place he could reach with his mouth, as Maine used one hand to unlace his breeches and shove them down his hips.  
  
The prince’s cock was proportional to the rest of him, long and girthy and well-formed, easily the largest Sigma had ever seen. Any normal person would have felt a streak of fear run through them at the sight, questioning if something of that magnitude even had a right to exist, but Sigma wasn’t exactly a normal person. He was a whore, a consummate professional, and on top of that, he was a total size queen. Maine seemed to know that he wanted to reach down and take it in both hands, because he held his wrists harder. Well, fine. If he wanted to play it that way, Sigma was just going to have to accelerate things himself. “Inside me. Now.”  
  
“Now?” Maine asked, voice silky against Sigma’s ear before he nipped at it. “But I’ll hurt you.”  
  
“Don’t tease me,” Sigma purred, writhing sinuously against his prince’s hold. “Do it, or I’ll do it myself.”  
  
Maine sounded more serious this time. “I don’t want to hurt you.”  
  
“There’s something on the nightstand –” he ran his teeth and tongue against Maine’s neck and had the satisfaction of making his prince moan – “the purple glass bottle…”  
  
Maine couldn’t keep his grip on Sigma’s hands and unstopper the bottle. Sigma was surprised, though, to see a slight tremor in his hands when he tested the oil between his fingertips. “What am I to do with this?”  
  
Sigma’s mouth fell open. “You can’t tell me you don’t know.” The way Maine wouldn’t meet his eyes was confirmation enough. “Slick your fingers, then use them to slick me.”  
  
For being so high in the pecking order, Maine certainly took orders well. He showed some consideration by starting with his littlest finger, but he used each one in turn, pressing and stretching and making Sigma contort in sweet agony. Just when Sigma was sure he was biting through his own lip in anticipation, Maine pulled away, kissing him on the cheek before whispering in his ear. “Are you ready?”  
  
“As I’ll ever be,” he muttered, sneaking one last glimpse at what was about to make its way inside him before Maine’s hands pushed up his knees.  
  
Sigma took a deep breath – and sighed it out at once, eyes squeezed shut as Maine pressed against him. His fingers tangled in his prince’s hair, nearly pulling it out as he tried to rein in the intensity of the sensation, and he could vaguely feel Maine’s hands smoothing over his neck, his cheek, his hip, his thigh. “Shh, shh,” he soothed him; Sigma could barely hear him over the sounds of his own whimpers.  
  
He must have been interpreting them as cries of pain. “No, no, keep going, it feels good –  _don’t stop_ ,” he insisted, using his hands in Maine’s hair to encourage him.  
  
The first long thrust was quickly followed by a second, and both of them were left breathless by the intensity of it all. “Nngh, dearheart,” Maine murmured, doing better at stringing words together than Sigma had figured. “Mmn, so good, augh, beautiful…”  
  
Everything was going hazy. Pleasure was rippling across Sigma’s body – he’d never dreamed he could feel this good before. “Oh –  _oh_  – like that, oh, Maine,” and he hoped the prince wouldn’t find bruises on his shoulders later, but he had to hold onto  _something_  when everything felt this good.  
  
A huge hand fumbled for Sigma’s cock, closing around it gently, the movements uncoordinated with the thrusts. His prince was still being kind, yes, but his breath was coming harsher, his movements faster and harder. “Haah, darling, nnhnnhnn, yes,” and his voice was cracking into ragged half-sobs of desperation as he used Sigma, touched him, brought him to unspeakable heights of pleasure.  
  
Sigma couldn’t respond to every touch, every thrust, had to content himself with just going along for the ride – and what a wonderful ride it was turning out to be. Every movement made his eyes roll back in his head, and he was trying so hard just to hold on that he didn’t realize how close he was to the end. “Maine – Maine,” and he realized he didn’t know whether he wanted to tell him to finish or to torture him.  
  
It didn’t matter. Sigma knew the moan of a climax anywhere, and the low, gurgling, sinister growl of “uuurrrrnnnh” in his ear was more than enough to push him over the edge. A few short moments of blinding white heat under his skin, his eyes open but unseeing, and then he was slammed back down into reality, panting and blinking and shivering.  
  
There was a brief moment of discomfort as Maine pulled away, and Sigma was acutely aware of how naked and sticky he was before Maine used a spare rag to wipe the spunk from his stomach. The prince had a blissed-out smile on his face as he sunk back onto the bed, and Sigma couldn’t help but ask. “Was I your first man?”  
  
“Mm?” His eyes, which had been fluttering shut, snapped open again and locked on Sigma. “Oh. I – I haven’t… really done this before,” he stuttered, turning onto his side to put his back to his whore.  
  
Sigma wasn’t going to let him get away with ignoring him; he reached out a shaky hand to trace the lines of the muscles in Maine’s arm. “Never?”  
  
“Not with anyone,” Maine admitted.  
  
“So I was your first?” Sigma asked.  
  
Maine nodded into his pillow. “My first  _anything_ , really.”  
  
Sigma felt like he’d been hit between the eyes; he lay there, stunned, unable to think. “You were a  _virgin_?” Maine nodded again, hiding his face further. “I can’t believe it,” Sigma admitted. “I mean, look at you. I bet people are falling all over themselves to be with you.”  
  
“You obviously haven’t met my father,” the prince said darkly.  
  
A sore subject, obviously; Sigma knew to back off. “So all those sweet nothings…”  
  
“Not nothings.” Maine turned over to face Sigma, and he was dwarfed inside his warm embrace. “You really are the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen – no matter what kind of clothes you’re wearing.” A huge hand caressed his back. “You’re absolutely gorgeous, darling. I’m not just saying these things. You are lovely and dazzling and absolutely  _exquisite_ ,” each adjective punctuated by a kiss on Sigma’s face, “and I will come to see you as often as I can, but as it is, I’ve set up a standard appointment for this time every week.”  
  
“That’s… that’s  _wonderful_ , sir – I mean Maine – I can’t believe you’d come again for me. I’m just a lowly whore.” He was taught to say this, to be demure, but he hoped, deep in his heart, that he’d see this strange, handsome prince again.  
  
“Not to me.” And Maine kissed him on the forehead tenderly, like they were lovers and not client and prostitute, and for a moment, Sigma thought his heart had grown wings.


	3. Interlude I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Delta gets interrupted. Why he still thinks this is unusual is beyond Sigma.

“Are you busy?”  
  
Delta sighed, turning from his work at his desk to look towards the doorway of his room. Sigma was leaning against the doorframe in laced breeches and a rumpled, oversized shirt, outlined against the dawn sunlight streaming into the hallway. His hair was disheveled, and the stink of sex was all over him; Delta wrinkled his nose and went back to his work. “I am always busy, Sigma, but I suppose, as usual, that you will interrupt me with whatever inanity you can manifest.”  
  
“I need a massage,” Sigma complained. By the sound of it, he had slumped across Delta’s bed.  
  
“If you wish to receive one, you will desist occupying your current position,” he said snippily.  
  
“Fine, fine, I get it, you don’t want me laying on your bed.” Delta could hear Sigma shift, and then he could feel a hot breath on the back of his neck – he had sat on the corner closest to Delta’s desk.  
  
Delta turned around; their noses were only inches apart. “Apparently you wish me to clarify. I do not want you in the vicinity of the place where I sleep, because I do not wish my quarters to reek of coitus.”  
  
Sigma just planted his hands behind him and leaned back, a grin spreading across his face. “Delta, you’re a  _whore_. It’s always going to smell like sin in here – at least now it’ll smell like me.”  
  
Delta raised an eyebrow, but any further attempt to dissuade Sigma would have been pointless. He shoved aside the glowing slate he had been using to calculate their net profits and left his desk. In no time, he was settled behind Sigma on his bed. “I still do not understand why you never ask Zayin to do these for you. She is… quite good with her hands.”  
  
“Yes, I know. You’re better.” He was shrugging out of his shirt by now, and Delta could see the smooth, rich skin of his back and the curves of the muscles under his skin. “You’re the best, Delta. Plus, Zayin isn’t good at much else. You can’t hold a conversation with that girl.”  
  
Delta ignored Sigma’s attempt at a compliment. “Show me where it hurts.”  
  
“Mostly here,” Sigma said, cupping the sides of his neck with his hands.  
  
Delta moved his hands aside, replacing them with his own. “Here?” he asked, pressing down with his thumbs. Sigma let out a slight whimper, and Delta could feel his wince in the sudden hunch of his shoulders. “You have a strain of both  _splenii capiti_ ,” he explained. “The injury is slight, but I recommend rest.”  
  
Sigma let out a groan as Delta continued to massage his neck; Delta could feel the hum of his larynx under his fingertips. “Mm, how do you know how to do that?” he murmured, leaning into the touch.  
  
“Years of training, during which I learned more about the human anatomy than I ever cared to know and which I cannot now forget. Did you know there are over two thousand erogenous zones that can be exploited, allowing for permutations in sequencing and combination?”  
  
Sigma just chuckled, his adam’s apple moving against Delta’s hands. “You had to go to school to learn that? Most of us had more, ah,  _informal_  training.”  
  
“Your lessons were crude, but I admit that they must have been thorough.” He leaned his head down to whisper in Sigma’s ear, using his knuckles now instead of his thumbs to knead the sides of his neck. “You and I have equal net profits for the year to date.”  
  
“I knew it,” Sigma crowed. “I knew it, I knew it – see?” Delta dug in his hands a little more firmly. “Ow! Okay, I get it, I’ll stop bragging.”  
  
The room was quiet for a few moments while Delta continued to administer to Sigma, his movements becoming gentler as he worked the tension out of Sigma’s muscles. “I would ask how you received these injuries, but I doubt I would care to know the specifics.”  
  
“Well, since you asked.” Delta was moving down to his shoulders now, and he could feel Sigma turning to face him, a grin on his face. “No specifics… but I will say that it involved our crown prince.”  
  
Delta’s hands stilled. “The Meta? Here?”  
  
“Why are you calling him that? The King hasn’t given him that title yet.” Sigma shivered under Delta’s hands. “It sounds so menacing.”  
  
“He is the Meta,” Delta reminded him. “Prince Maine is next in line to the throne.”  
  
“And he comes here for whores just like anybody else,” Sigma pointed out. “Can you get further down on my back? This is killing me,” he whined, holding his back above his hip with one of his hands.  
  
Delta drew back, leaving his bed to go back to his desk. “If you solicit any more of my services besides the ones I have already provided, I will be forced to charge you.”  
  
Sigma huffed, grabbing his shirt as he rose from the bed and shrugging into it. “Y’know, the Councillor doesn’t exactly forbid inter-house relations. Might do you some good to –“  
  
“I said no, Sigma,” Delta interrupted him.  
  
“All right, okay, forget I asked,” Sigma chuckled. “Thanks for… well.” He paused by the doorway. “If you ever need anything in return, just let me know.”  
  
Delta turned his head, about to ask Sigma a question, but he had to stop, mouth open: Sigma had already left, the only reminder of his presence the musk still lingering on Delta’s sheets.


	4. Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Epsilon makes a bet; Wyoming has a proposition for Gamma.

“Oh my, would you look at that, he’s late,” Sigma cooed.  
  
He and Delta were sharing the couch in the sitting nook beneath the right wing of the double staircase, Delta’s head cradled in Sigma’s lap as he was reading a slim green-covered book. When the door from the street opened, Sigma leaned over the arm to see the entryway a little clearer, disturbing the lay of Delta’s head, and the blond whore closed his book around his thumb and disentangled himself from Sigma’s frilly dress. “The only logical explanation is an unavoidable social engagement,” Delta muttered as he propped himself onto his elbow, watching the door shut behind the white-clad figure. “The Earl is usually prompt.”  
  
“Who’s he here for?” Epsilon had been working at school lessons on Delta’s slate, sitting on the floor and leaning against an arm of the couch, but he set aside his work to look at the Earl. The man had auburn hair that was styled into a swirl, and he had a mustache and goatee; he was frowning down at an elegant pocket watch.  
  
“Honestly,” Sigma said, leaning down to fluff Epsilon’s hair, “if you’re ever going to make a good whore, you’re going to need to pay more attention to these kinds of things.”  
  
“He has a standing appointment with Gamma at this time every week,” Delta explained. “Ah, there he is.”  
  
The three of them turned their attention to the upper balcony, where an impeccably-suited Gamma, tattoo barely visible, was waiting with poorly-concealed agitation. The Earl began to ascend the staircase without an escort; Epsilon was puzzled, but saved the questions until the door was shut behind the client and the prostitute. “The Earl of what?”  
  
“Wyoming, but you can call him ‘rat bastard’,” Sigma joked. “Ow, don’t pinch me, Delta!”  
  
“And he’s allowed to go up there without an escort?” Epsilon asked.  
  
“He’s one of our best customers,” Sigma told him. “Always pays promptly and tips well, hardly leaves a mark, has regular appointments with his favorite, and his manners are impeccable.”  
  
“Except for coming late,” Epsilon reminded him.  
  
“I conjecture the Councillor will have some choice words for him later,” Delta muttered, returning to his book.  
  
Epsilon wasn’t out of questions, though. “Why does he always come for Gamma?”  
  
Sigma sighed, but it didn’t entirely hide his chuckle. “Oh, Epsilon, they don’t tell you anything, do they? You poor soul. You have no idea what you’re getting into.”  
  
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Epsilon bit off.  
  
“Language,” Delta said almost lazily, turning a page.  
  
“Hey, I wasn’t done with that,” Sigma complained, turning it back.  
  
“May I advise retrieving your own reading material from the library?” Delta suggested, returning to his place in the book before Sigma had interrupted.  
  
“I would, but…” Sigma trailed off, fingers twisting in fine blond hair and massaging the head that was in his lap. “Hey, Epsilon. Wanna make a bet? Half your daily allowance that Omega corners Gamma by tomorrow night.”  
  
“Accepted,” Epsilon said, making a note on Delta’s slate.  
  
“The odds are six to one in Sigma’s favor,” Delta warned him.  
  
“Yeah, well, there’s nothing else to fucking do around here,” Epsilon grumbled.  
  
“Language!” Sigma and Delta said in unison. Epsilon cowered, his mood palpably darker as he turned back to his schoolwork, muttering words under his breath that sounded a lot like ‘fuckface’ and ‘cuntrag’.  
  
\--  
  
Gamma always hated this part.  
  
It was so easy for Gamma to pretend he enjoyed it. His best attribute was his inclination to lie, after all. In another life, under another set of circumstances, he might have made a great actor for the stage, a successful con artist, or even a powerful politician. Right now, however, he was snared in the Councillor’s net, playing petty spy to a set of royals and paying a steep price for it.  
  
Most nights, the equation to get the Earl to talk was simple: as the intensity of the sex plus the sweet-talking by Gamma, divided by the magnitude of the secret times the incentive not to tell it, approached one, the likelihood of finding out something interesting increased exponentially until it was hardly a choice when the client divulged his most privileged information. Gamma had Delta to thank for that formula, and he resented the little logical snot getting into his business, but the principle was ultimately true. He could either ignore it and risk losing valuable information, or exploit it to its fullest potential and acquire some sweet, sweet blackmail.  
  
Technically, they weren’t supposed to use the word ‘blackmail’; it was such an ugly word, and it would have implicated the Teahouse in much more than just basic human trafficking and human rights violations. The government could only look the other way so much. When the Teahouse was operating on its own, there was precious little anyone could do about, but when it started interfering in the affairs of the nobility, that was when they faced the possibility of investigation. And, as the Councillor kept repeating to them, the Teahouse must in no way be questioned about its motives.  
  
The Councillor had been keeping a profile on the Earl of Wyoming for some time now, using Gamma as leverage since Gamma was his favorite. It wasn’t too difficult; the Earl was a predictable man, and more importantly, he seemed to share Gamma’s sense of humor. Bullshitting with him had taken some practice, but now Gamma could remember every lie he’d ever told him, catalogued in his extensive and precise notes and paraphrased in that excellent mind of his. It made him smile, most days, to know just what he’d gotten away with.  
  
Gamma had learned, for example, that Wyoming’s favorite roleplays were inherently classist somehow: knight and page, merchant and laborer, lord and peasant, gaoler and prisoner. The Earl would usually play off of however Gamma was dressed, which would mean that tonight he could be a laborer and not just a whore. Wyoming was more vicious as a merchant, too, which would mean that the sex would be so exceptional that he wouldn’t have a choice whether or not to tell Gamma his troubles.  
  
The Earl had never been this fierce in stripping him before. His jacket was roughly shoved down his shoulders, his tie was hardly undone before it was whipped over his head, and the buttons on his shirt didn’t fare much better. In no time at all, he was bare to the waist. And he didn’t just have a mark on his neck: his tattoos were all over his body, scrawled neatly across the entirety of both arms from wrist to shoulder and creeping over onto his chest. “Ah, what do we have here!” the Earl declared in his magniloquent accent. “As per employee regulations, none of my workers are allowed to modify their bodies in this manner! I shall have to devise a punishment for you. Nothing too strenuous, but something exceedingly unpleasant, I should think.”  
  
The curl of Wyoming’s smile beneath his mustache was the confirmation that yes, the tattoos  _did_  turn him on, and so did the prospect of ‘punishing’ him. It was now Gamma’s turn to follow along with the act, but it was so hard to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. “Oh no, please, don’t punish me,” he said in his characteristic monotone, mirroring the smile on the Earl’s face.  
  
“Stop complaining or I’ll find a better use for your mouth.” His tone was clipped, brusque, like he had better things to do; Gamma was enjoying seeing him get so much into the act.  
  
“Oh, please, anything but that.” He played his part perfectly, down to the horrified look on his face.  
  
True to his role, Wyoming grabbed his lower jaw and held his mouth open; with his other hand, he undid the front of his own trousers. He wasn’t hard, but it didn’t matter. “This is what happens when you mouth back to me.” He rubbed the head against Gamma’s lips before forcing it into his open mouth. “Your mouth  _belongs_  to me. Never –  _ah_  – forget that…” Gamma mumbled around the cock stiffening under the ministrations of his tongue, and sure enough, that earned him a slap to the face – just hard enough to sting, but not hard enough to leave a mark. “No manners,” the Earl complained. “Talking with your mouth full… insufferable…”  
  
Wyoming was on the verge of another insult, but Gamma took his breath away: he used the bead of his piercing to trace the crown of the cock in his mouth. When he rubbed the piercing against Wyoming’s frenum, the Earl bucked, tangling his fingers in Gamma’s hair and gagging him as he thrust into his mouth. He moaned at the delicious pain-pleasure of it all, the vibrations thrumming against the Earl’s cock, and he used his hands to push down those immaculate white trousers and expose his legs.  
  
“No.” It was quiet, but authoritative, and it was followed by the fist in Gamma’s hair drawing his mouth away. “You have no right to this,” Wyoming growled. Another slap across the face made Gamma flush with anticipation: his Earl was in an unusually dark mood, which meant that the sex tonight would be exceptionally good. “On the contrary, I have every right to you. I  _own_  you. I  _own_  your body, and I  _own_  what you can do with it. And since you can’t be trusted to be responsible with it, I must take matters into my own hands.”  
  
“Oh, please, don’t,” though the bulge in his pants made it obvious that the ‘don’t’ was a ‘do’.  
  
The wry smile curling under the Earl’s mustache let Gamma know that Wyoming still considered this a game – a very entertaining and empowering game, but still separated from reality. “Trousers off.” Gamma shed them with unprecedented speed. Even though this wasn’t about his pleasure, he was hard, and it brought the embarrassment factor of the endeavor to a head. “You did this deliberately,” the Earl said quietly, still in character as he outlined the vein in Gamma’s cock with a soft, cold fingertip. “You wanted to get my attention. Well, now you have it. You’re sorry now, aren’t you.”  
  
“Sorry, so sorry, please,” and he didn’t even have to pretend to squirm under that sensitive touch.  
  
Wyoming’s fingertip circled the tattoo on Gamma’s hip. It was the most faded of all of them, and it was also one of the smallest: just an inverted vase, a letter in a language Wyoming didn’t know. “You belong to  _me_ ,” the Earl hissed, scratching it as if that would erase the mark. “ _Me_ , and no one else.” It was hard for Gamma to tell, sometimes, when Wyoming said these things, what part was pretend and what part wasn’t. Even the best deception had roots in reality. As Gamma was trying to think things through, though, Wyoming made all his thoughts fall out of his head, that roving fingertip now working its way inside of him and stretching him.  
  
“Please,” Gamma begged, his tone desperate but ambiguous between ‘yes’ and ‘no.’  
  
“No mercy,” Wyoming growled, adding another finger. Gamma cried out, back arching, trying to push the Earl’s fingers deeper, make him stop teasing, but it was futile. The Earl knew him too well, and tonight he was using that to his advantage. “This game is designed to hurt,” he murmured into Gamma’s ear, the multiple sensations forcing him to bite down a squeal. “Submit, you fool…”  
  
Just when he seemed about to hit Gamma’s hot spot, though, he pulled away, leaving him shivering on the bed as he stripped from his immaculate white clothes. Wyoming never appeared less than flawless in public, and any stain on them would have indicated where he had been. It only hyped Gamma’s anticipation to see the Earl’s clothes in such disarray, whether on or off his person – he knew he was the only one to see him like this, to know him at his most vulnerable. Or powerful, as the case was tonight, because he pulled Gamma’s ass to the edge of the bed and started to show him who was the boss here.  
  
Gamma liked the pain, at least. It showed in every bit of black ink under his skin, and he reveled in it as the Earl pushed his way inside, inch by agonizing inch. He played up his screams, knowing Wyoming got off on it, and he was rewarded with a nip to his neck and a particularly vicious thrust. The heat was unbearable, the sensation was amazing, but Gamma wouldn’t just let the Earl use his body. He could fight back, after all.  
  
So he brought his hands up to scratch at Wyoming’s shoulders, forcing the Earl to let out a short, sharp cry of pleasure. Gamma paid for it, though, when those strong hands pinned his arms to the bed and used the leverage to thrust even harder into him. This was the most ferocious he’d ever seen Wyoming, and he intended to take full advantage of it, voicing every moan and writhing underneath him.  
  
It was savage and brutal and cruel and almost inhuman, the way the Earl abused him, and though his tattoos would easily cover the bruises Wyoming was leaving, he was savoring every sensation of their infliction, already imagining the color between the lines filled in with shades of purple and black and blue and green. With every sadistic thrust, he could feel his eyes rolling back in his head, could almost _taste_  the rage coming from the Earl (or was that the blood from biting his own lip?), and the pleasure followed so soon behind the pain that it was easy for Gamma to conflate the two.  
  
Because even though Wyoming was the one with the cock in someone’s ass, even though Wyoming was the lord and Gamma the whore, even though Wyoming was the one using Gamma for his pleasure and leaving nothing but pain in his wake, Gamma was the one in charge here. It was Gamma who had a say in his clients, Gamma who knew Wyoming’s body inside and out, and Gamma who ultimately had the trump card: the power of extortion. And though his body was paying the price, he was still triumphing in his mind, knowing that he had the upper hand even if he was on the bottom.  
  
Wyoming was grunting with every shove, skin slapping together and leaving raw red marks. Gamma wished he had a hand free, because he was close, so close, on that delicious edge between  _not quite_  and _oh yes_ , and he knew that any attention to his cock would make him blow. The Earl, though, was deliberately pinning him down, making him struggle to free himself. The best he could do was rut up against Wyoming’s stomach as he continued to slam into him, using the teasing friction to rile himself even further. The way Wyoming was pounding him was getting more desperate, less rhythmic, and Gamma knew things were coming to a head when one last slow, deliberate thrust took his breath away. He needed more, he needed it harder, needed to be bit and scratched and  _hurt_ , but the vice grip the Earl had on his hands was the only pain he could abuse.  
  
Just when he was about to peak, though, he could feel Wyoming lose it, biting down on Gamma’s ear to stifle his moan as he shot off inside him. It was torture feeling him pull out – he needed the raw intensity of that much stimulation, and now that it was just his wrists being ill-treated, he was stuck in the boundary. “Did you think I owed you a favor?” The Earl was breathless, but his smooth accent was still curled beneath his words, making his voice even sexier than normal.  
  
He was so close to spilling that he could have done it on command – had even taught himself to do so, letting images flick through his mind until he forced himself to come undone – but tonight, it would be better for him to let Wyoming think he had control. “Please,” he said softly through a broken sob, daring to catch the Earl’s gaze through half-lidded eyes. “Please.” He was losing the edge, but arcing himself from shoulder to knee brought him close again as he rutted against nothing but air. “Please, I’ll do anything, I need you, let me come,  _please_ ,” and just like he knew they would, his cries got more genuine, using that exquisite note of misery that was too pure to be faked.  
  
“Hips down,” he ordered. Gamma lay back down immediately, liking his imperious, take-charge tone. “If you move any bit of you from where it is positioned at this very moment, I will draw out this agony interminably.” He nodded, then bit his tongue when Wyoming stopped pinning him down, forcing the whine in his throat into a moan. It was easier to close his eyes for this – it made the tantalizing effect of the complete loss of sensation that much more amplified. When he opened his mouth to beg for his release, though, the tip of a finger guided it shut. “Don’t say a word.”  
  
He was obedient – afraid to move, afraid to speak, afraid to breathe. He could only imagine how much the whore he looked right now: Wyoming’s spunk dripping from his hole, the sheen of sweat sticking to him, the steady march of the black ink under his skin, the flush on his face, the wrinkles in the corners of his eyes from squeezing them closed, the tip of a tongue trying to moisten his split lip, and most importantly, cock so straining hard it was leaking. Just those images might have been enough, but he had to hold back, had to wait for –  
  
Wyoming touched him so delicately, traced a line on his cock from base to tip, and the simple sensation was all it took for Gamma to finally give in. He wasn’t prepared for how strong it was, the full impact of it shivering up his spine and fizzling in his head, and he clutched onto the sheets to prevent himself from twitching too much. Wyoming was savoring his whimpers; he could feel a heavy hand on his throat, but not heavy enough to choke. Beads of his load splattered across his stomach, hot and thick, more than he thought he had in him; he could hear the Earl let out a low, dark laugh, relishing how much he’d come undone from just that one touch.  
  
Eventually, he came back to himself, chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath back. “Wyoming,” he sighed between gasps. “Wyoming – you were – that was –”  
  
“I thought I told you not to say a word?” The Earl was sitting, still naked, at the side of the bed, matting down the leaves in his pipe. The brief illumination of a match made his eyes gleam orange, and then the heavy, ashy smell of the smoke began to fill the room. He smiled at Gamma’s quick, alarmed glance. “Your begging offends me. Praise, however, I can put up with.”  
  
Gamma was still uneasy, though, as he propped himself onto his elbows and used the bedsheet to wipe the worst of the mess from his stomach. “If I’ve done something to upset you…”  
  
“No, no, dear boy, it’s nothing to do with you.” Wyoming waved a hand around in the air animatedly as he chewed on the end of his pipe. Gamma bristled slightly at the word ‘boy’, but did his best to conceal his agitation. He was no ‘boy’, not like Epsilon or Delta, and he resented his skills being lumped with theirs.  
  
Gamma groaned as he pulled himself up to sitting. He’d be paying the price later for letting himself be so poorly used; he could already feel his muscles stiffening and his joints aching. And he wouldn’t go and beg anyone for a massage, either. Better to relish it than deny it – and better to ignore it right now, when he had some wheedling to do. “What is bothering you?”  
  
“Hmm. You noticed.” Wyoming looked disappointed, but how could he be so ignorant? He’d be walking this off until next week. “It seems one of your little friends has a proposition for me.”  
  
“Who?” Gamma had no ‘friends’. He had coworkers and clients and that was about it.  
  
“Omega.”  
  
Gamma resisted the urge to slap his palm to his forehead. That fucker. He should have known that Wyoming would never hurt him this much unless someone like Omega had put him up to it. The confrontation he was going to have with his coworker after this would break the long-standing bet they had between them, too. Bastard. “Why?”  
  
“It seems one of his clients is… irrevocably detained with a group of vagabonds. Normally I wouldn’t muddy my hands with this plebian work, but Omega wants this client back badly – and quietly.” The Earl puffed on his pipe. “What I don’t understand, however, is the substantial sum he’s offered me for the job. I was under the impression that he was a whore.”  
  
“He  _is_  a whore.” And a cheat and a swindler. Gamma had the feeling that the money he’d just lost in Omega’s bet was going straight back to paying the Earl. “What does he want you to do?”  
  
“I’m to assassinate one of those renegades,” the Earl sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose and rolling his eyes. He sounded utterly bored. “Not the most interesting of maneuvers, given my reputation, but he insists. He also demands that I have some sort of back-up plan.”  
  
Gamma’s guts turned. “What sort?”  
  
“It appears that, should I fail to assassinate him, this particular vagrant is going to ingratiate himself with those  _aliens_  that continue to invade our country. Obviously, this is a risk to national security.” Wyoming was staring right at him; Gamma pretended not to notice. “I need your help in spreading some propaganda so we can undermine their religion from the inside and prevent them from starting a war.”  
  
“My help?” Gamma tried his best to sound flattered.  
  
“You are the best deceiver I know,” Wyoming admitted. “If anyone can convincingly manipulate an entire belief system, it would be you.”  
  
It was an amazing opportunity, one that made his heart race with excitement, but the prospect of being any further involved with Omega made him wary. “What would I have to do?”  
  
“Play it by ear, mostly. I’ve already talked the matter over with the Councillor, and he’s given me full permission to escort you out of the mansion for this task.” He sighed heavily, a ring of smoke coming from between his parted lips. “It’s costing me heavily, but I believe you will make it worth my while.”  
  
“Worth…?” Gamma definitely didn’t like where this was going.  
  
“Don’t be a fool; it’s so unattractive on you.” He reached out a hand, and it landed, cool and comforting, on the blossoming bruises on Gamma’s arms. “If you agree to help me,  _this_  won’t happen again.”  
  
Tempting. He couldn’t have his body broken like this once a week. “Clarify?”  
  
“I’ll still be your client, of course,” the Earl said off-handedly. “Except that I won’t treat you this… roughly, from now on. In fact,” and his voice dropped to an obviously seductive pitch, “I’ll make it worth your while…”  
  
Gamma swallowed and collected his thoughts. “How worth my while?”  
  
The Earl crept closer and kissed him on the mouth. It was bristly from the mustache close on his upper lip, and he tasted like ash and death, but he was breaking his personal boundary and attempting to show Gamma some kindness. Even though he’d just let go of all the tension he had, he could feel himself getting wound up again.  
  
Then Wyoming pulled away, his eyes searching Gamma’s face for any kind of reaction. Finally, Gamma smirked, his smile only curving up one corner of his mouth. “When do we start?”


	5. Interlude II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sigma comes (no, not literally) bearing gifts.

“As this line approaches the asymptote…”  
  
Sigma had caught Delta with his door open at the end of the night, acting as Epsilon’s tutor. The two of them were hunched over his slate, lost in the lesson. Delta’s hands were sweeping across and making notes, and Epsilon was following along as best he could, brows furrowed but nodding in all the right places.  
  
Sigma rapped his knuckles against the doorframe, and they both turned around to see him. “Oh, sorry, Sigma, I should have noticed – we were busy,” Epsilon frantically apologized, rising from the bed.  
  
“Sit down. I just wanted to share some apples.” He rustled his skirt with one hand, making the fruits shake inside their makeshift cloth basket.  
  
“Apples?” The gentle insinuation behind Delta’s simple question was that Sigma was somehow being manipulative – or, more correctly, more manipulative than usual.  
  
“Hush, you. They’re not poisoned.” He sat down on the bed, crossing his legs under his skirt, and took two apples in one hand, holding out the third to Epsilon. “First apples of the season.”  
  
Epsilon took it gently. “Where did you find these?”  
  
“The mansion next door has a small orchard in that back corner where our wall is crumbling,” Sigma explained. “I, ah, relieved the little tree of these heavy apples so it could keep growing true and strong.”  
  
“He stole them,” Delta translated.  
  
Epsilon chuckled as he bit into his apple. The juice from it ran down his fingers, but by the time it reached his wrist, he had already wiped it on the linen of Sigma’s simple dress. “Hey,” Sigma complained. “Unless you’re doing my laundry this week, you can’t use that as a napkin.”  
  
“Well, as it turns out, I am, so.” Epsilon stuck out his tongue, and Sigma laughed in his face.  
  
“I believe the standard phrase of reproach is ‘if you keep making that face, it will stick that way,’ but as that is physically impossible, I will call attention to how many nerve endings are on your tongue and how sharp my fingernails are.” Delta said it in such a passive manner; he wasn’t even paying attention to their little altercation, too busy slicing into his apple with a small paring knife.  
  
“Aren’t you supposed to be getting just as messy as the rest of us?” Sigma said around a mouthful of fruit.  
  
“Sigma, I had supposed that your habit of talking with your mouth full would have been eradicated by now. It is most unattractive.”  
  
Sigma swallowed. “I won’t do it again, Delta.”  
  
“Why do you always do everything he says?” Epsilon asked as Delta pried a slice out of his apple and ate it from the edge of his knife.  
  
“Because it makes so much damned sense,” Sigma grumbled. It was easier to explain it that way than to try to put his ridiculous adoration of everything Delta was into words.  
  
“Language,” Epsilon crowed, pointing a finger at him.  
  
Delta was opening his mouth to say something, but Sigma cut in before he could speak. “Please, it was a slip-up, I won’t say or do anything else, just let me stay here.”  
  
Delta stared at him, those disconcertingly green eyes looking for a sign of weakness, but then looked back to his apple, concealing a sigh. “You may stay.”  
  
“Thanks,” Sigma whispered, reaching out with his clean hand to touch Delta gently behind the elbow. He could tell Epsilon was staring. Let him stare – Sigma had nothing to be ashamed of, and Delta didn’t even understand the concept. And when Delta leaned just that little bit closer to him, their knees nudging together, Sigma smiled.


	6. Part III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Epsilon plays delivery boy, bets are lost, and Gamma gets what's coming to him.

The sun was throwing its last rays across the sky, but for the Teahouse, the day was only just beginning. Outside, the general cacophony was sliding from order to lawlessness as legitimate businesses closed up shop and less reputable traders took up their storefronts. The smell of wine, beer, and spirits was thick in the air, and the alehouses and winesinks were spilling their tables out into the streets.  
  
The district the Teahouse was situated in was less chaotic, but only slightly. Though it was more reputable and put more pride in its service, at the end of the day, it was still a whorehouse – no matter what kind of clientele its prostitutes managed to lure in. And so here, the day began as in any other brothel. The aroma of fresh breakfast pastries permeated the halls, mingling with the ever-present odors of sex, pheromones, and exotic perfumes.  
  
There were almost fifty of them living in this mansion. The girls lived on the west end, nicknamed the Hebrew wing, and the boys lived opposite in the Greek wing, although it was sometimes hard to tell the wings apart, given the amount of after-hours fraternization. For his part, Epsilon was awakened by the sound of a splash of water, followed by two nearly-identical girlish shrieks. When he opened his eyes, he could see the hallways were already choked with people; the two screeching girls, the twins Heth and Teth, were running past his doorway, laughing and squawking still, their shifts so soaked they were nearly transparent. Most likely, they had been splashed by one of the boys as they were trying to draw their bathwater.  
  
Epsilon was completely uninterested in their shenanigans, preferring to stay in bed; he groaned and rolled over. If he could still pretend to sleep, maybe he could actually drift off as the general caterwauling subsided. Delta was usually in high demand early in the night, and if Epsilon played his hand right, he’d be able to get out of most of tonight’s school lessons.  
  
If he’d been hoping to have some luck, though, he was sadly mistaken. No sooner had he turned over than he heard heavy footsteps in his room. “Get  _up_ , you lazy cockbite!” Judging by the tone and general lack of courtesy, Beth was standing over him, hands on her hips, her mouth set in a disdainful snarl, nose wrinkled like she smelled something foul. Epsilon didn’t give her the honor of a reply; he pulled another pillow over his head and pressed it against his ear.  
  
The minute he was firmly situated, it was yanked away, and a cruel finger and thumb were tweaking his ear. Epsilon twisted under the punch, and the hand pulled his head away from the pillow. “Ow ow ow ow ow!”  
  
“Wake up, bastard,” she yelled into his ear.  
  
His eyes were shut against the annoyance of the pain, but he hazarded opening one eye. Of course, Beth was already dressed, a peasant blouse advertising her ample breasts, a wide garter emphasizing the hourglass between bust and hips. She’d brushed her golden hair until it shone, and her light blue eyes were shining with malice. Other men might have counted her pretty – beautiful, even – but everyone in the Teahouse, Epsilon included, had learned that underneath that vain shell, Beth was a bitch, through and through. “Didn’t we already have this discussion?” he whined, Beth still pulling at his ear. “We’re all baseborn, bastards, and whoresons here. It’s not an insult if it’s true.”  
  
Beth’s gaze was unrelenting, but she finally let go of his ear after a last wrench. He clutched at it, glaring at her hotly, but she was unmoved. “The Councillor wants to see you.”  
  
“Oh,  _joy_ ,” Epsilon said sarcastically. “This is sure to be something good. Run some errands for me, Epsilon. Here’s a pop quiz, Epsilon. Do you know how much you’re worth, Epsilon? Don’t talk back, Epsilon. There’s a good boy, Epsilon.”  
  
“Just go,” Beth interrupted him. “He’s in a wonderfully foul mood.”  
  
“You’re not my goddamn mother,” he grumbled back.  
  
“Yeah, and who is? Sigma?” She laughed cruelly as she stepped out into the hall. “Whoreson,” she jeered, but before Epsilon could insult her back, she was gone.  
  
He could see how Beth could make lesser whores cry. She insulted everyone for everything, from their appearance to their abilities, and rumor had it that she’d kicked more than a few asses in her time to snare a spot as alpha female. Epsilon knew that he should consider himself lucky that she hadn’t slapped him senseless, but it was probably for the fact that the Councillor would see a mark if she had.   
  
He sighed heavily as he dressed, dashing a little cold water against his face to help himself wake up. His hair, even though he attacked it vigorously with a comb, was refusing to stay where he wanted it. It didn’t matter: the Councillor would begrudge his very existence, as he usually did, whether he looked presentable or not.  
  
Before he saw the Boss, though, he needed something to eat. The eating gallery was full-up at this time of day, the entryway practically a rotating door as people entered and left based on their schedule. A few tables were stacked with their usual occupants: Aleph, as usual, was surrounded by the whores that Epsilon had nicknamed her ladies-in-waiting, cool and regal; Beth was glowering into her oatmeal, and even her usual retainers were keeping their distance; Heth and Teth were synched with the other twins, Pi and Rho, sharing from each other’s plates; Delta and Sigma were slightly apart from everyone, Delta’s nose in a book, Sigma gesticulating wildly over his plate of fruit. Epsilon grabbed a cruller, waved a quick hello to Delta and Sigma, and whispered a few words in Aleph’s ear: she’d want to know about the altercation he’d just had with Beth.  
  
The hallways were still crawling with whores in various states of dress and undress, and Epsilon managed to shoulder his way through the melee without shoving too many people out of his way. By the time he got to the front desk, his mouth was still crammed full of pastry, and he sprayed crumbs over the receptionist. “Counshillor ashked to shee me,” he slurred around his food. The receptionist raised an eyebrow, but let him pass to the oaken door that hid the Boss’s office.  
  
He didn’t bother to knock before going in. Just like Beth had warned him, the Councillor was in a rare mood. His distemper was nearly palatable, but his voice was as smooth and soothing as ever. “You’re late.”  
  
Epsilon was scared into snapping to attention. “I – Beth woke me, I didn’t –”  
  
“No excuses,” the Councillor interrupted him. Before Epsilon could continue stammering out his protest, he brought a package out from under his mahogany desk, wrapped neatly in brown parchment paper and tied with simple twine. “Deliver this. And do tell me what this says, won’t you?” The Councillor slipped an envelope into Epsilon’s hand, followed by the package. Epsilon was about to ask a question, but thought better of it; he scampered before the Councillor could throw any more tasks his way, ducking underneath the raised arm of the receptionist as she came to knock on the oak door.  
  
The package was unmarked, but the letter had obviously come with it, and it was marked with a sideways M. He knew who this was for, and so he headed right back to the Greek wing. A few potential clients tried to get in a free grope here and there, but he was used to it – he was getting good at slithering out of the grasp of drunken lechers before they could lay a hand on him.  
  
The corridors of the Greek wing were still packed with people, but it was a little quieter now. Fewer girls were here, and the boys didn’t have time to chat; it was all hurry-hurry-hurry, and Epsilon fell into the rhythm of it. He checked Delta’s room first, but the door was closed and locked, so he rushed down the hall, trying not to body-check anyone into the walls on his way. “Epsilon, you’d better slow down before you hurt someone,” a voice called after him.  
  
He’d skidded right by Sigma’s door in his impatience. “Oh, thank fuck, now I can stop running,” he panted, stumbling into his room. “Here. For you.” He held the package and the envelope out; they were a little crumpled, but no worse for wear.  
  
Sigma took the package gently. “No word on who sent this?”  
  
Epsilon shook his head, collapsing onto Sigma’s vanity stool. “Councillor had a huge stick up his ass today. Wanted to get the fuck away from him.”  
  
“I’m not Delta, so I won’t chide you on your language, but really, you ought to watch your tongue a little better.” He worked on the package, picking at the twine with slim fingers and unfolding the paper away from what was inside.  
  
Epsilon was at a bad angle to see, but Sigma’s little gasp made him lean closer in wonder. “What’s in there?”  
  
“It’s…” His voice was shaking. “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”  
  
Epsilon squinted at it. “What is it?”  
  
“It’s a dress.” Sigma pulled it out slowly, and the whisper of rustling fabric filled the room. “It’s gorgeous, just look at it, Epsilon!”  
  
It was a deep green, one that brought out the richness in Sigma’s dark skin. The fabric glimmered in the light, and each stitch was so small it was almost invisible. Every so often, there was an embroidered gold detail, and little beads glittered around it. “I don’t get it,” Epsilon muttered. He never understood why Sigma got so worked up about these kinds of things.  
  
“Oh, look, there’s matching  _shoes_ ,” he cooed, pulling them out from underneath the dress. There was a series of little  _thuds_  on the floor when they were moved, though, and Epsilon could see another flash of gold. Sigma bent down to pick them up, but when he recognized what they were, he blushed. “Jewelry,” he breathed. There were two gold bracelets, one studded with diamonds, the other with emeralds, and a fine, ribbon-like intricate chain that Sigma fingered delicately. “Oh, this is too much…” He sat heavily on his bed, looking light-headed.  
  
“This came for you, too,” Epsilon mentioned, holding out the envelope.  
  
Sigma took it in trembling hands. When he unfolded the letter inside, he read it aloud, his voice low but excited. “My darling Sigma, these may be mere ornaments, but perhaps they can match your beauty. I gift you with these so that you might wear them to the  _bal_  that the Viscountess Carolina is hosting… oh dear,” he said weakly, using the letter to fan himself. “Pinch me, Epsilon, I’m sure I’m dreaming.”  
  
Epsilon pinched his forearm, hard, and Sigma winced. “Read the rest of it,” he demanded.  
  
Sigma nodded, trying to regain his composure. “Hosting at the palace,” he continued. “This dress is only the first of many I wish you to have, and make no mistake, you deserve them, dearheart. I will be there at my usual time this week, but I hope you will not be surprised if I come for you sooner. Wear this ensemble so I may see you in it, and I will tell you more about the  _bal_. In the meantime, keep your patience as I keep mine, and know that I yearn for you. Your prince, Maine.” He stared at the letter in his hands. “And I’m not dreaming?”  
  
Epsilon shook his head, just as much in shock. “Not unless I’m dreaming too.” He huffed a small laugh. “The Councillor’s gonna be pissed that he’s taking you out.”  
  
“The Councillor can, as you would so colorfully say, stick that up his ass as far as I’m concerned. And I’m sure Maine will have some choice words for him, should he care to deny his request.” He smoothed over the fabric of the dress with his hands. “This color… Delta would look marvelous in this, if only he’d let me. It’s more like him.”  
  
“Seriously? The fucking crown prince sends you diamonds and gold and all you can think about is Delta? That’s it, I’m outta here.”  
  
Before Epsilon could storm all the way out, though, Sigma called out to him. “Wait.” He paused. “You still owe me something.”  
  
“I owe you jack shit, now let me get back to the Councillor before he hands me my own ass.”  
  
“You know you have class with Delta tonight,” Sigma reminded him. “I’m glad you delivered this, though. It means I can collect on the bet.”  
  
“No way,” Epsilon protested. “You don’t have any proof.”  
  
“Go past Omega’s door. Then ask yourself why it’s locked and why there’s cries of pain coming out from inside.” Sigma smirked. “Ask Delta if you don’t believe me.”  
  
Epsilon sighed. “Fine. You win. I’ll give it to you later tonight.”  
  
“There’s a good boy. Oh, and say hello to Delta for me!” he called as Epsilon left the room.  
  
“Say hello,” he grumbled. “Yeah, right. Send your own love notes!” he yelled back, enjoying the laughter of the whores still in the halls as he ran to find Delta.  
  
\--  
  
Gamma had lost a bet of his own.  
  
He was naked save for leather cuffs at his wrists, black as the tattoos they covered. Said cuffs were currently lashed with leather cording to the headboard of Omega’s bed, and the man himself was sitting on the backs of his knees, keeping him on his stomach. The feel of a cold knife along his back shouldn’t have shocked him by now, but he twitched all the same, even though it was just a sharpening stroke. “Jumpy, pet?” Omega mocked him.  
  
“No,” Gamma insisted, but he had to choke down a scream as the knife finally bit into his skin.  
  
“Don’t lie,” Omega purred. The blade twirled elegantly in Gamma’s skin, tracing a curving bracket across the small of his back; the bottom point ended just above the split of his legs, and even now, blood was beginning to drip between his asscheeks.  
  
Gamma longed to say something to him, but Omega hadn’t asked him a direct question, and he was too busy trying not to bite his own tongue off. The other man’s fingers were smearing his blood along his back, and he could feel it spreading, sticky and hot. The room was even beginning to smell of it, coppery and heavy, and beneath it all was the stink of fear.  
  
But this wouldn’t be the worst of what would happen to him tonight. These shallow cuts were just a prelude to the main act, and though he couldn’t see what was happening, Gamma knew that Omega was preparing for it. He knew the tool well: a bone needle, filed incredibly thin and hollowed only slightly, attached to a handle with a small leather grip. He could hear the grinding of the mortar and pestle as Omega ground the carbon for the tattooing ink, and his anticipation only heightened when he could hear the ethanol mixed in.  
  
It still didn’t prepare him for the raw, burning sting of the first percussive strike of the needle against his open wound. Gamma had watched Omega work before, knew that he used his grip hand as a fulcrum and pressed down in quick taps with the flat of the other, but not being able to see what was happening made each sensation more intense. When he instinctively squirmed away from the needle, Omega reached up and fisted his hand in Gamma’s hair, just hard enough to make sure he was listening. “Stay still,” he ordered. “Or do you want this to take longer?”  
  
“No,” Gamma said instinctively.  
  
“No,  _sir_.” The hand in his hair only tightened its grip. “And I thought I told you not to lie. You want this, don’t you?” It wasn’t exactly phrased as a question, and though Gamma couldn’t see, he knew that Omega’s characteristic sadistic grin was spreading from ear to ear.  
  
“Yes, sir,” he admitted, voice defeated.  
  
As soon as he confessed, the pain started again, fire spreading under his skin. His scream crawled out of his throat and left it raw, and Omega’s dark chuckle was the perfect accompaniment. “Yes, that’s right, scream for me,” he murmured, tapping the ink under his skin. “You’re mine,  _mine_ ,” and each word was punctuated by a harder strike.  
  
“Yours,” Gamma echoed him, “yours, yours,” as if it would make the pain go away, as if he could earn his redemption like this.  
  
“I’ve marked you and marked you and marked you,” he snarled, marking him further, “and still he thinks he has you.” His needle stilled momentarily, and a hand snaked around his body, nails scratching at the small tattoo on his hip. “ _Whose are you?_ ”  
  
“Yours, Omega, yours…” He bucked, freeing his erection, willing his partner’s hand to move, to grasp, to pleasure.  
  
Instead, he got a punch between his shoulder blades, forcing his body back down onto the bed and causing his cock to get trapped between his stomach and the bedsheets. “ _Three_  orders now you’ve disobeyed. Don’t lie, don’t move, don’t use my name.” The hand that had punched him smoothed its way down his spine, stopping just before it reached the mess of his lower back. “I’m beginning to think that you don’t deserve this. Do you?”  
  
And then there was nothing, no touch on Gamma at all besides the weight on the backs of his thighs. “Please,” he hissed, the sound involuntary.  
  
“Please what?” Omega mocked him.  
  
“Please, sir…”  
  
“Please what?” Omega repeated.  
  
“Touch me, sir,  _please_ ,” and the moment the last syllable was out of his mouth, Omega started tattooing him again and he could do nothing but scream.  
  
“Such a glutton,” Omega commented, keeping up a steady rhythm as he worked his way across Gamma’s back. “You say you don’t want me, yet you come back for more. You’re truly a terrible liar. Ah ah ah,” he chastised – Gamma didn’t even realize he had been about to speak, but he bit his lip instead. “Don’t deny it, fool. What do you have to say for yourself, hmm?”  
  
“The only one I can’t lie to – nngh – is you,” Gamma admitted, eyes screwed shut against the pain and humiliation.  
  
“Ah, yes, because you lie to him so well. Tell me,” and he swept across to outline the last part of the tattoo, “does he really believe that you love him?”  
  
This was one question Gamma didn’t want to answer. He kept his teeth gritted, the pain-wet seeping out from under his eyelids and dampening his face, and his hands clenched into ineffectual fists behind his leather cuffs. When Omega articulated one of the points of the bracket, he cried out, but kept the words out of his throat.  
  
“Tell me,” Omega reiterated, “does he truly care for you that much?”  
  
“Yes, sir,” Gamma hissed. If he tried, he could still remember the scratch of an auburn goatee against his chin, the taste of pipe smoke, the unexpected gentleness of a kiss on the mouth.  
  
“He can’t have you.” A staccato of puncturing pain accompanied each venomous word. “You were only asked to do this mission because  _I_  requested it.”  
  
So why did he have to play these games? Gamma wondered as he winced and cried out and irritated the bruises still blooming on his arms. Why couldn’t he have just asked him outright?  
  
“You know how I work,” Omega said, as if he were answering his partner’s questions. “Infection. Corruption. Possession. I had to make him think that it was his idea, his request, to his benefit. But you know whom you serve.” The fist went back to his hair again. “Who do you serve?”  
  
“You, sir,” Gamma choked out. He knew the tattoo was done when Omega threw the needle and handle in the corner of the room, and he flinched at the sound.  
  
“Who do you belong to?” he growled.  
  
“You, sir, you,” and before he could say anything else, his throat betrayed him in a moan – Omega’s fingers were on his freshly-inked tattoo, smearing around the blood and ink everywhere, the liquid a lubrication between skin and rough fingertips.  
  
“Who do you owe your life to?” Omega barked out. He took his weight off of the back of Gamma’s knees, and Gamma took the opportunity to lift his hips from the bed. It only served to expose him further, and the chuckle from his side was enough confirmation that Omega was expecting him to submit to this kind of humiliation. When he opened his eyes, he could see the sadist rubbing his fingertips together, as if testing the viscosity of the fluid between them – and then he smeared the ink-and-blood mix over the omega tattoo on his own hip. “I asked you a question,” he said as he shed his clothes, voice low and dangerous, and Gamma blinked, ashamed to have been caught staring. “Who do you owe your life to, fool?”  
  
“You, sir,  _please_ ,” and he was surprised at the intensity of the lust in his words.  
  
He could feel the bed dip behind him as Omega settled his body between his legs. A filthy hand came up to his hair again, catching his ear with his nails. “Please touch me, please hurt me, please fuck me,” Omega simpered. “Oh, how I love it when you beg.” But his hand smeared its way across Gamma’s face, and finally, two fingers hooked in his mouth, holding his jaw down. “But not tonight.”  
  
There was no preamble, no warning, just Omega shoving his shaft into his ass. Gamma’s eyes rolled back in his head and he screamed against the sadist’s hold, concentrating so hard on not biting the fingers between his teeth. Another thrust, lubed with nothing but blood and ink, and the same taste was in his mouth, dark and sharp and gritty.  
  
“Not tonight, no,” Omega was muttering under the scream floating in the air, split up by the wet slap of skin on skin. “I just want to hear you scream, fool. Scream for me.”  
  
Gamma was only too happy to oblige, each stroke of Omega’s bringing the other man’s stomach down onto the abused skin on his lower back. Sure, each thrust was enough to make him see stars, but the pleasure was counterbalanced by the pain and abuse. Omega’s other hand was busy scratching him anywhere he could reach, leaving gouges in the shallows of his ribs, across his chest, on his shoulders. Gamma wanted so badly to pay him back, to hurt him as he was being hurt, but his hands were still bound, wrists aching with bruises past and bruises yet to come, fingers crackling as he tried not to let them curl in.  
  
Omega gnawed at the skin on his neck, purpling the skin beneath the gamma there. “He can’t touch you like this,” he was grunting as he pounded into him, “he can’t hurt you like this, he can’t fuck you like this, because he doesn’t know you, Gary, he doesn’t know how much of a whore you really are, he doesn’t know what you need. What do you need?” He curled his hands around Gamma’s hips for leverage, nails digging in and leaving bloody prints.  
  
“You, sir, you,” he mindlessly recited. He was close, so close, just a spark more of pain, a hint more of pleasure…  
  
“What do you want?” Omega snarled into his ear before biting down on the shell.  
  
Gamma let out a curdled yell before blabbering, “I want – please, I want –” He was cut off by one of Omega’s hands roughly fisting his cock. One, two pulls, and he lost it faster than he thought possible, hissing out a ‘yes’ as his cum and blood dripped onto Omega’s sheets.  
  
“You fool,” Omega whispered, sounding almost sentimental for a moment. But that was before he stilled after a particularly vicious thrust, nails scrabbling along Gamma’s thighs as he howled through his orgasm.  
  
They were both stuck together by sweat and blood and ink, and Gamma could feel Omega panting over him, hands calming to slow pets against his abused body. And then the sadist peeled away, leaving nothing but rawness behind, and to add insult to injury, he shoved against a sore shoulder as he climbed out of the bed.  
  
It took no more than two seconds for him to untie Gamma’s cuffs from the headboard. “Get out,” he seethed, throwing the leather cords back into his face.  
  
Gamma didn’t need to be told twice, but actually making it out of the room was another matter. It was almost too much for him to pull his tunic over his head, and he could tell that it was already becoming stained. Yet another article of clothing wasted – at least this one hadn’t been cut to ribbons on its way off his body. He stumbled heavily to the door, pulling it shut behind him, and none too soon, because he could hear something shattering against the wall where his head had been.  
  
He couldn’t walk any further; his legs refused to cooperate, and even when he fell heavily against the wall, his arm couldn’t keep him propped up. What he didn’t expect was someone else trying to hold him upright, pulling one of his bruised arms around small shoulders, a cool hand pulling his side away from the wall. Gamma collapsed gratefully into that hold, but when his chin landed in silky, ash-brown hair, he started to process who was dragging him down the hallway. “Theta?”  
  
The boy just held onto him tighter, pulling him away from prying eyes and shutting a door behind them. Gamma had never been so glad that Theta was a mute, because he didn’t ask any questions as he peeled the soiled clothing off his back. When he looked into the boy’s eyes, he could see compassion and – disgusting – pity, but those cool, soothing hands stripped him of his cuffs and guided him into a bath, water scalding hot. Gamma groaned as he collapsed into it, falling to his knees, forehead resting against his forearms on the ridge of the tub, carefully keeping his back dry.  
  
A warm, wet cloth massaged along his shoulders, and Gamma hissed as water made its way into his fresh tattoo. He could see the water staining, light, then pink, then coagulating with accumulated filth as Theta sloughed away the worst of the mess that Omega had left on his skin. Shivering, deep in his own headspace, he could barely feel what was happening to him, but the emotions were still there. Somehow, this – this  _kid_  – he understood that Gamma couldn’t just lick his wounds and walk away. There were tender touches between his shoulders, massaging his hair, nudging his legs apart so that the cum dripping down his thighs could get wiped away. Gamma was in a place beyond words, somewhere between ashamed and grateful, and this mute seemed to understand it all, if his reassuring hands were any indication.  
  
When Theta pulled him out of the water, he hissed, both at the cold of hot water drying on his skin and at the fingers digging into the purple-blue color on his arms. Bandages were wrapped around his hips, and the fabric felt abrasive against his tattoo, but this would be the only way it could heal. He didn’t remember being dragged onto a bed, but his head was in Theta’s lap, cool fingers combing through his tangled curls, other hand smoothing down his back. A tremor went up his spine, and Theta covered his nakedness with a blanket.  
  
He drank water from a cup he was offered, only a small amount dribbling down his chin. Chocolate was put up to his mouth and he took it, eating it straight from Theta’s hand and licking up the little bit that had melted onto his fingertips. Once he’d swallowed, Theta wiped the spittle from his bottom lip with the pad of his thumb before caressing the side of his face delicately.  
  
Gamma at least had the decency to groan in appreciation, but it was nice knowing that he didn’t have to speak. No lies – just actions. And Theta’s actions always spoke louder than words ever could. This wasn’t the first time Theta had been there to bring him down from the dangerous pain-high of his sessions with Omega, and Gamma knew it wouldn’t be the last. Meanwhile, his battered body was giving up on him, and he knew he was on the verge of passing out. “Sorry – so sorry,” he mumbled.  
  
Theta leaned down to leave a kiss on his temple, making vague shushing noises into Gamma’s upturned ear. His one hand continued to pet at Gamma’s curls; the other hand was rubbing a salve into the mauled mark on his neck.  
  
“Thank you,” he whispered, but that was before Theta closed his mouth with a soothing fingertip. No words, he was telling him with that gesture. And so Gamma breathed in the comfortable silence of the room, hissing as a cold ointment was applied to his tortured skin, sighing at each petting pass of Theta’s palms. It was comforting, having touches that put him back together instead of tearing him apart, and he felt like he could finally rest, relax, and recuperate. Theta would heal him. He’d be safe here.


	7. Interlude III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Delta is unable to be embarrassed, even during a lecture on the birds and the bees. And Epsilon is still a snotty little cuss.

Delta rapped at Epsilon’s knuckles with his yard-long pointer, the one that until a few seconds ago had been pointing out various spots on the anatomy charts pinned to an easel in Delta’s room. “Are you paying attention?”  
  
Of course not, Epsilon thought as he continued to fiddle with his fingernails. “Yes,” he lied.  
  
“Very well,” Delta snipped. He flipped past a few charts until he landed on one that was unlabeled. He whipped the pointer to designate an area in the mass of diagrams. “Recite.”  
  
Epsilon didn’t look up. “Cock, balls, balls, parts I don’t care about, asshole.”  
  
This time, the rap came to the side of his head. When he looked up, Delta’s poker face was perfect, but his tone sounded a touch more restrained than usual. “The technical terms, if you will.”  
  
Epsilon sighed, actually paying attention to the illustration for once. “Urethral meatus,” he listed, and Delta whacked another part of the diagram. “Glans,” another whack, “corona, frenum, prepuce, shaft,” the whacks and the recitation coming faster now, “scrotum, testes, raphe, perineum, anal sphincter, rectum, prostate, are we done here?”  
  
“So you  _do_  learn what I teach you. Fascinating.” He flipped to a different set of charts. “Again.”  
  
“Oh, come  _on_.” He preemptively winced, but Delta didn’t hit him, and so he continued to rattle off names for parts he’d never seen. “Mons, clitoral hood, clitoral glans, outer and inner labia, vagina, perineum, anal sphincter, rectum,  _really_ , Delta, was that entirely necessary?”  
  
“I intend to educate you as much as I can before you formally enter our trade,” Delta told him for what must have been the thousandth time. To Epsilon’s great relief, he flipped the charts closed. The easel they’d been resting on folded under Delta’s hands, and the whole kit disappeared into a closet.  
  
“It’s not gonna help,” he groused, flopping back on Delta’s bed. Even though all the rooms on the first floor of this mansion were superficially identical, their inhabitants brought their individual quirks to their space. Delta’s was stark, his slate centered on his desk, all his drawers and cabinets firmly shut, his bed neatly made with green bedding. Not a thing was out of place, and everything was precisely where he meant it to be. Epsilon longed to trash the place, but it wouldn’t endear his tutor to him.  
  
Delta clearly resented Epsilon’s making himself at home, but he was dignified enough not to say anything about it, preferring to sit in the high-backed wooden chair at his desk. “Knowing the human body is to be your future profession,” he reminded him. “This education can only serve you well.”  
  
“Oh, so once I know what everything looks like and what the names are for what I’m touching, I’m just magically going to know what it feels like?” Epsilon snarked back.  
  
Delta was silent for a few moments; Epsilon gloated, thinking he’d finally gotten to him. But eventually, he did have an answer. “If you prefer tonight’s lesson to be on hormonal interaction, you should have said so from the beginning. Androgens, estrogens, and progestins are the primary physiological instigators, and oxytocin, vasopressin, serotonin, and dopamine act as secondary –”  
  
“No, that’s not what I’m talking about,” Epsilon cut him off. He was sick of lessons. “I’m talking about – you know, how does it  _feel_.”  
  
“Ah.” Delta’s eyes were sharp on him. “Do you masturbate?”  
  
 _“What the fuck?!”_  
  
Delta continued as if he hadn’t heard Epsilon’s rude interjection. “The physical sensations remain much the same. Erogenous zones carry over between varying kinds of sexual activity.”  
  
“Damn it, Delta!” Epsilon pounded a fist into the bed, glaring back at his tutor. “Are you fucking around with me, or do you just not understand what I’m asking you? I want to know how it  _feels_ ,” he repeated. “How it really  _feels_  when you’re with somebody else – when you’re fucking someone. How to get through to someone like that, how to see them like that, how to – how to just  _let go_.”  
  
The room was filled with a decidedly uncomfortable silence after that. Delta’s expression remained unchanged, but that could have meant  _anything_  to Epsilon. Finally, after opening and closing his mouth a few times, he said, “You are asking about emotions.”  
  
“Well,  _yeah_ ,” Epsilon scoffed – duh. “What did you think I was asking about?”  
  
Delta didn’t answer his question, but lapsed back into silence. Epsilon figured that he didn’t quite get how awkward the atmosphere in the little room had become. “I cannot answer your questions.”  
  
It was exactly what Epsilon didn’t want to hear; a flare of pissed-off ignited somewhere deep inside him. “The hell not?”  
  
“First, you are acting like a child. I need not remind you that your education thus far has technically been ‘corruption of a minor,’ and if you continue to call attention to your age, I will be forced to terminate these lessons.” Delta’s tone was icy, but Epsilon rolled his eyes; it was an empty threat, since the Councillor would sooner punish Delta for not educating him than the law would crack down on the Teahouse. Besides, Epsilon wouldn’t be totally averse to that outcome. “Second,” Delta continued, “I do not have the information you seek.”  
  
“Yeah, and who’s gonna tell me? Ugh, fuck this bullshit.” He rolled over and headed for the door, holding his baggy trousers up around his skinny hips, mumbling things about ‘completely useless’ and ‘fucking frustrating’.  
  
No sooner did he open the door to the hallway than he crashed into Sigma for the second time that night, the boning of the other whore’s corset only intensifying the impact. “Oh, Epsilon – Delta, I’m sorry, was I interrupting something?”  
  
“Not any more,” Epsilon grumbled. “The fuck do you want?”  
  
Sigma sighed, turning to Delta. “I thought you said you’d be washing his mouth out with soap.”  
  
“Unfortunately, he correctly recited his lesson for me.” Delta turned his gaze from Sigma to Epsilon. “You may go, unless you have any further questions.”  
  
“Are you shitting me.” Epsilon turned to Sigma instead. “You and I? Are having a serious talk. Soon.”  
  
“If… that’s what you want…” Sigma looked helpless. “What did I just walk into?” he asked Delta.  
  
“I recommend dropping this topic of conversation,” Delta said coldly. “Epsilon, you are dismissed.”  
  
“Oh, no way.” He smirked as he looked between the other two. “I wanna see this.”  
  
The only sign Delta was remotely perturbed was the alacrity with which he left his seat. “That was not a question, that was an order.  _Go_.”  
  
“Fine,” Epsilon spat out, but he couldn’t leave without one passing insult. “You know, you’re awfully prudish for a whore.”  
  
He was ushered out by Sigma’s foot booting up against his ass and pushing him down the hallway. “Definitely needs soap to the mouth,” Epsilon could catch before the door closed. Then, muffled, “You can’t blame him for asking questions, Dee.”  
  
Epsilon crept closer to the door; he was going to stick around if they were talking about him. “So you were eavesdropping,” Delta surmised.  
  
“I didn’t want to interrupt your lesson.” It sounded like a feeble excuse, even to Epsilon.  
  
“I am quickly approaching my limit with him.” Delta sounded more tense than usual.  
  
“He’s just scared.” Bullshit he was scared, Epsilon thought, but interrupting Sigma now would mean betraying that he’d been listening in. “Probably confused, too. Don’t you remember what it’s like being fifteen?”  
  
“I would rather not,” Delta said curtly. “My intentions are to keep Epsilon’s innocence around him for as long as possible. He has scant few months of childhood left.”  
  
Sigma let out a soft laugh, then murmured something that Epsilon didn’t quite hear. “Besides,” he continued, “as long as he can keep up the  _act_ …”  
  
“Absolutely not,” Delta insisted. “Your encouragement of his inappropriate behavior is bad enough. You will not bring me into this.”  
  
“Don’t you get why he asked you that question in the first place?” Epsilon craned his neck so he could listen closer; Sigma’s volume was dropping. “He looks up to you, Dee. I wish I could do this –”  
  
“You shall. I hereby abdicate my position as Epsilon’s tutor and entrust it to you.”  
  
 _“Are you insane?”_  Sigma’s voice was raised so high that it made Epsilon jump. “God knows I’m already a bad enough influence on the kid as it is. I can’t do it – not in good conscience.”  
  
“You will at least assist in his education. He appears eager enough to ask you difficult questions.”  
  
Sigma chuckled. “Dee, just because they’re hard for  _you_  to answer doesn’t mean they’re hard for  _everyone_  to talk about.”  
  
Silence, then muffled words between the two of them that Epsilon couldn’t catch through the door, a sharp gasp, a scuffle – and then Delta spoke up again. “Sigma, please.”  
  
“All right, all right. But you know where I am if you need me.”  
  
And then the door opened and closed, and Sigma was standing right in front of him. “Oh, shit,” Epsilon cursed reflexively.  
  
“You were listening in, I take it?” Epsilon nodded, trying to look appropriately cowed. “Did you see us fight?”  
  
“No, but I could hear it,” he mumbled, very carefully not looking at Sigma’s face.  
  
Epsilon was expecting a swat upside the face, but instead, Sigma’s hand went to tousle his hair. “It’s okay. People fight. Honestly, I’d be more worried if we  _didn’t_  fight.”  
  
“He’s not mad at me, is he?” He hated himself for asking that question, for needing Delta’s approval.  
  
“I don’t think Delta’s capable of anger.” Sigma looked off to the side, wistful for a moment, then snapped back to present-moment. “I need to write a letter. Do your math lessons, okay?”  
  
Epsilon just gave him a cheeky smirk. “Yeah, right. You’re not Delta.”  
  
“I know, but I try.” He cupped Epsilon’s cheek, looking into his eyes. “You’re a good kid, Epsilon. Just… start acting like it.”  
  
He nodded quietly, and Sigma left his side to do whatever whoring business he needed to. Once he was securely out of range, Epsilon had one final wibbling question for him: “But what if I don’t know how?”


	8. Backstory I: Delta's Story

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Councillor makes a fortuitous acquisition; Delta becomes the whore we recognize.

This was the place? This was where the smartest person in the kingdom resided? It was an asylum, cold and gray and bleak. The Councillor was already despairing of finding any actual intelligence here.  
  
The mansion was in disrepair, crumbling mortar only mirroring what he presumed was the mental state of its inhabitants; hangings were torn, carpets were filthy, and the glass in the windows was broken in a hundred places. The wards that he passed through were stuffed to the gills with nattering patients, some of them drooling onto their own chests, others screaming with the eyes of the mad and the claws of animals. There was no hope here for sanity, let alone smarts.  
  
The nurse in charge of the smallest ward, though, seemed to understand why the Councillor was here. He barely needed an introduction; his reputation preceded him. “Right this way,” she said, eyeing the king’s seal on his scroll.  
  
He was led through a set of double doors, and then he was in a gigantic library, shelves twice as tall as he was and each of them packed with books. The windows in here were all intact, though the broken panes seemed to have been replaced with green glass, and the sunlight filtering through the rose window at the end of the hall was tinged with the verdant scene depicted there. Even the carpet in here was viridian, edged with gold piping.  
  
“He’ll be at the end of the hall,” she told him, and then, before he had dismissed her, she took her leave, shutting the double doors behind her as she left. He was alone, now, in this towering monument to learning, and he felt small as he passed by each set of stacks. The back of the room, though, housed something that might have passed for a bedroom, with a washing basin and a hard sleeping pallet.  
  
Off to the side, a boy, nine or ten years old, was sitting at a large table made of dark wood. Books were piled on either side of him, and he was transcribing some bit or another onto a substandard bit of vellum with a ratty quill. His hair shone white-gold in the ambient light; though his eyes were mostly on his manuscript, the Councillor could see a flash of disarming green now and then.  
  
He was on the verge of introducing himself when the child interrupted him without turning away from his work. “You bear the seal of the king.” For one so young, he had the intonation of an adult.  
  
“And I speak with his voice. I am his Councillor, one of many.” He waited until the boy looked up before he spoke again. “What is your name?”  
  
“I have none.” He looked bored with this conversation, and his fingers seemed to tremble now that he was no longer writing.  
  
His next question was more gentle. “Why are you here?”  
  
“My lady mother said I should not have been born – that I was abomination, anathema, atrocity. My lord father agreed. They disowned me and left me here in lieu of an orphanage. I am told I will live out the rest of my life in all comfort and privacy.” His voice was void of emotion, relating these sentences as cold fact.  
  
The Councillor let his elbows come up on the table, trying to show this child that he was listening attentively. “No brothers? No sisters?”  
  
“They waited to commit me until they were sure of a capable heir. As I aged, their opinion was confirmed that I was incapable of doing what they desired.”  
  
“And what is it you are capable of?” the Councillor asked him pointedly.  
  
The boy changed the subject deftly. “You are here because you have heard the rumors.”  
  
The Councillor refused to go off-topic. “And are they true?”  
  
“Yes.” His green eyes seemed to be inspecting him, waiting for a reaction; the Councillor refused to give him one. “Are you satisfied with what you see?”  
  
“Very.” The Councillor steepled his hands. “Do you like it here?”  
  
“The accommodations are adequate. I have my privacy to work as I wish, although I am nearing the end of the reading material here.” To the Councillor’s questioning look, he replied, “I have an eidetic memory. There is no need for me to go over material I have already synthesized.”  
  
It was better than he could have ever hoped; this could be the opportunity to snare the country’s most intelligent person for his own purposes. “What would you say if I told you I could get you access to all the books you wanted?”  
  
The boy’s eyes narrowed slightly. “You would have them delivered here?”  
  
“No. I want to offer you some gainful employment.” He took the child’s silence as permission to continue, and he dug into his satchel for an item to give him. “Here. Take a look at this.”  
  
The boy took it from his hands. It was a slate, but instead of stone, the screen glowed from within, and information scrolled across the display. “Fascinating,” he breathed, holding it gently in both hands.  
  
“You can keep it if you agree to work for me,” the Councillor promised.  
  
“What sort of work requires this type of processor?” He was quickly picking up the ability to manipulate the screen.  
  
“You have the ideal traits for aristocratic levels of espionage,” the Councillor explained. “You’d be undercover, of course, but I believe this is a good use for your… rather unique set of skills.” He left the offer dangling.  
  
“And who would I be in service to?”  
  
“Who do you take me for?” He grinned broadly. “The Crown, of course.”  
  
“I shall require a name,” he pointed out.  
  
It was as good as an acceptance. “Delta,” the Councillor said, reaching a hand across the table. The kid took it and shook it firmly. He seemed to have an acute sense of space. Good. He rummaged in his satchel again and rolled out a contract on top of Delta’s work papers. “Merely a formality, of course.”  
  
The boy didn’t sign his name on the Councillor’s parchment, just a triangle. “Done.”  
  
“Excellent.” The Councillor stood, tucking the contract back in with his papers. “Welcome to His Majesty’s service.”  
  
\--  
  
Delta considered that day his birthday. He was soon moved out of his former lodgings and into a dormitory with more children around his age. The others seemed small, and they shrunk away from physical contact. The only thing they all had in common was that they were all unusually attractive. Unlike him, the others were of low birth, offspring of the peasants and baseborn; it took little else for him to extrapolate how they had come to be here.  
  
He completed the ten years of schooling ahead of him in two and a half, quickly edging out of his age-class and placing among younger teens, then older teens, then full-fledged young men. When he was twelve, he graduated from the strange academy and was finally placed at a business – a brothel. What he would do as a whore of twelve was beyond him to imagine, but if he could draw in the kind of clientele that the Councillor needed to oversee, then he was fulfilling his occupation.  
  
There were laws against this sort of thing. He had memorized them as part of his education. But they seemed to make no difference in a place like this. There were other children here, some even younger than him, and they had vacant eyes and dulled expressions. Delta knew what was expected of him, and so he did what he was bid. The King must have been desperate for information if he was sanctioning this illegal activity.  
  
What he did, he did well. His knowledge might have been theoretical to begin with, but he was diligent and precise, and the practical application was easy enough. He learned to dull his intelligence and act the part of an innocent, virginal child. Every client was convinced that they were Delta’s first: his fumblings were carefully calculated, his kisses sloppy but eager, his protests demure but sincere.  
  
He was doted on by both men and women. Some were respectful of his personal space; others were not. An elderly man was the first to reach into his breeches and fondle him, and Delta mirrored the action. A high-born lady twice his age brought his hand inside the side slit of her dress and petticoats, and for the first time he felt a woman; she squirmed with his fingers inside her until she cried out at a pitch he had not thought physically possible.  
  
He was thirteen by the first time he gave oral sex to a man, still too underdeveloped for his client’s erection to pass his gag reflex. A few weeks later he had his first experience with his head beneath a skirt, the girl only a few years older than him and gripping onto his hands holding up her petticoats so hard that he had crescent-moon nail marks for weeks.  
  
Days shy of his fourteenth birthday, he finally penetrated a woman, going through the undignified rutting motions and ensuring she was thoroughly, bonelessly satiated beneath him before he carefully withdrew and ejaculated elsewhere. The night he turned fourteen was the night he himself was first penetrated. The client was kind but endowed; despite his mental and physical preparation, Delta was unused to the sensation, and he cried out, first in pain, then, later, in wordless pleasure.  
  
The Councillor’s client list for him quickly became skewed towards men. He was encouraged to keep a john or two, which was never difficult for him. By the time he turned fifteen, he was turning several tricks a night, never appearing worse for wear even after being thoroughly used. Though he was the best at this brothel, he was refused a spot at the top brothel in the city, the Teahouse, on the grounds of his age. Once he turned sixteen, he was transferred there as fast as he could move his few belongings.  
  
At the Teahouse, the youngest charge was put in his care, and it became his additional responsibility to teach this young boy everything he could about his craft. Epsilon was only nine when he arrived; Delta identified strongly with him. Despite his own age, by seventeen Delta was the head of espionage at the Teahouse, synthesizing reports almost as fast as they were given to him and reporting to the Councillor once a week on any developments within the nobility, be they rumor or fact.  
  
Delta was the best at what he did, the top earner at the Teahouse. He could manipulate the mind as well as the body, and his reports to the Councillor were both succinct and informative. Over time, he only became more of an expert, and he was held in high esteem. He could never fill in the gap left by the one crucial spy who had gone missing years before, the one they had codenamed Alpha, but the organization of his network rivaled anything that an individual could do.   
  
He prided himself on being the consummate professional. He rarely had emotions of his own, could hardly categorize them if he were asked, and his own feelings never entered into his engagements with his clients. He could manufacture faked pleasure from their inaccurate grasps and mediocre technique, could say the right words when he was asked about his emotional state, but he had never quite understood the popular myths of true love, or soul mates, or sex that left the mind incapable of rational thought.  
  
Yet how was it that a single kiss from Sigma was enough to set his skin tingling? When Sigma drew back, Delta could see the ardent eagerness in his eyes, and it touched him deeply. If he gave himself room to reflect, he would have to admit that he could feel a stirring of some affectionate feeling inside himself. He counted himself fortunate that, with his myriad duties, he could keep himself too busy to think on it.  
  
Later. He took a deep breath in through his nose, let it out through his mouth, and started to work on his slate. He would process it later.


	9. Part IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Delta is constantly distracted while he tries to compile this week's report; Carolina sets aside some time to visit her twins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was written before we knew their names were eta and iota so uh
> 
> fuck it we'll do it live

“Wow,” was all Epsilon could say to it.  
  
He’d lived here ever since he could remember, yet he’d never seen Sigma quite so… radiant. It wasn’t just in his wide smile, lips rouged to the ideal shade to emphasize his perfectly white teeth, or in the kohl on his eyelids that brought out the brightness of his tawny eyes. His skin just seemed to glow from within, a slight shimmer of gold powder sitting high on his cheekbones; he looked like he’d been gilded. He was wearing a gown Epsilon had never seen before, a robe of white silk with a lavender sash at the waist. The ends of his wide sleeves had matching piping, and splashed across one shoulder was a print of a gigantic purple orchid. He even smelled of them – had probably used a scented oil to get his black hair to shine like that. “ _Wow_?” Sigma questioned him, an eyebrow raised. “That’s all you can say?”  
  
“Well, I mean, um.” Epsilon looked across the antechamber to where Delta was working at his slate, hoping for some guidance. No dice. Delta couldn’t be distracted when he was scowling like that. “You look, um.” Even though he knew Sigma was only teasing him, this was still a test. “You look wonderful this evening,” he tried. “Fuck, what do you want from me?”  
  
“So close,” Sigma mourned. “Delta, I think some of our training may have finally sunk in.”  
  
“I disagree,” Delta said in his clipped, businesslike tone. “Eventually, he will need to deliver that sentiment without faltering – and without the addition at the end.”  
  
“Oh,  _come on_ , you can’t ever let me pass, can you?” He must have been especially pissy tonight.  
  
Delta ignored him in favor of questioning Sigma. “Have you given me your weekly report yet?”  
  
“Oh. Oh – Delta,” and the way it came out of his mouth made it clear that the name was in lieu of a swear, “I’ll have it at the end of tonight, please, I’m waiting on –”  
  
“You can’t take that trick, that’s the knave of phoenixes and the tall card is dragons!” one of the girl twins talked over him – Heth, if she hadn’t switched monogram necklaces with her sister again. It had been easy to ignore the two sets of twins playing cards in the corner of the room, as long as they were quiet.  
  
“Yeah, look, I have the naught of dragons, hand it over,” Teth complained.  
  
“Shut up, it’s the left bower, won it square,” Rho cut her off. It was always easy to tell the male twins apart: even though they were physically identical, Pi was significantly more level-headed than his brother.  
  
“Ugh, fine,” Teth acquiesced. “We shouldn’t have to remember your stupid rules anyway. It’s hard enough to remember knaves are higher than naughts.”  
  
“We’re playing for chores,” Pi reminded her. “I mean, unless you  _want_  to scrub out the bathing chambers next week. You’re up on us eight to three and we’re playing ‘til ten by two.”  
  
“How come they get to play cards?” Sigma asked as their conversation volume came down to a more reasonable level.  
  
“They have already handed me their reports,” Delta said, glaring at Sigma meaningfully.  
  
“But I  _can’t_ ,” he insisted, “you  _know_  who I’m seeing tonight! If I keep him waiting –”  
  
Delta interrupted him before he could complain too much. “Then you shall have to explain to the Councillor why his weekly synopsis is missing information.”  
  
And almost as if on cue, the door to the antechamber opened with a very audible creak and the Councillor strode in, pompous as ever. “Sigma,” he called, beckoning with his hand.  
  
Sigma ghosted towards the door, graceful as ever. “If you’ll excuse me.” The look he shot Delta as he left could have withered an apple, but Delta didn’t even look up from his work.  
  
“And you two,” the Councillor continued. “Pi. Rho. The Viscountess is here.”  
  
“You win,” they said in unison as they folded their cards. When they left the room, the Councillor shut the door behind them.  
  
Epsilon had heard the rumors about those two, but he’d never thought they were true. Now, though, he had to ask. “Are they really going to…?”  
  
“Yes,” Delta snipped at him.  
  
“But why is that even…”  
  
“Epsilon, you were brought up in a brothel,” Delta reminded him. “I fail to see how this information is in any way abnormal, given the context. Ah, there you are, Theta,” he said to the newest entry to the room.  
  
The mute laid a scroll on Delta’s desk, eyes flicking over briefly to acknowledge Epsilon’s presence. Once his report was in Delta’s hands, he left his desk to sit down with the twins, picking up what had been Rho’s hand and sifting through it. “They taught us stupid rules, but they lost anyway,” one of the twins told Theta. “You need a partner if you want to play.”  
  
Before Epsilon could even turn to Delta to ask him for permission, Delta anticipated his question. “No.”  
  
“You never let me do anything fun around here,” Epsilon complained, rolling over on his little sofa so he was stomach-down, feet in the air. “Please?” He tried his best to use whatever flirtation skills Sigma had taught him to send Delta what he hoped was a knee-jellifying gaze.  
  
“Absolutely not,” he said in his that-is-final tone.  
  
“You know,” Epsilon commented over the sound of Delta’s fingertips abusing the screen of his slate, “you don’t have to be such a bitch just because Sigma’s fucking someone else tonight.”  
  
Epsilon could almost feel it in the air when Delta’s composure snapped. “Out.”  
  
“But I didn’t even –”  
  
“ _Out_ ,” he said again, gesturing to the door.  
  
“–  _do_  anything,” he whined, flopping off the couch and onto the floor. “Can’t I just play cards with –” Delta’s glare was intense, and he was still pointing to the exit. “Whoa, okay, leaving now.” He rushed to the door. “Don’t have to put up with this shit,” he grumbled as he opened the door. He only had to entertain himself for a few hours while Sigma was busy, and then he fully intended to ask him about everything Delta wouldn’t tell him.  
  
\--  
  
“Oh, boys,” the Viscountess Carolina sighed, throwing her arms around their shoulders and pulling each of them in for a kiss on the forehead in turn, “I’ve missed you so much.”  
  
The room she normally chose for her visits was sumptuously luxurious. Everything was in her favorite color, a rich, deep ruby-red: the heavy curtains, the plush carpeting, the velvet bedspread, even the walls. There was a table pushed up near the bed, covered in exotic fruits and pitchers of mixed drinks. Rho was already glutting himself with the food, sampling everything there was to offer, washing it down with glass after glass of iced milk with honey.  
  
For his part, Pi poured a glass of it, but it wasn’t for himself; he offered it to Carolina, kissing her on the cheek as she took it from his hands. “You look lovely tonight,” he complimented her. Her thick chestnut hair fell in ringlets past her shoulders, falling around her heart-shaped face; her gray eyes glittered with humor, and a half-smile always seemed to be spreading across her pink lips. Her gown tonight was made from foam-green silk, a color that suited her lightly-tanned skin. The neckline of it especially emphasized her breasts, and it nipped in so close at her waist that Pi wasn’t sure how she could breathe.  
  
She sat on the bed and patted her lap, and ever obedient, Pi went to lay down at her side, resting his head on her skirts. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t come to see you sooner,” she apologized, running her fingers through his hair. “This time of year is always so busy, what with the  _bal_  and everything that comes along with it. You wouldn’t believe it, the caterers nearly dropped out on me earlier this week…”  
  
Pi just let her words wash over him. He was more concerned with watching his brother. To an untrained eye, the two of them looked exactly alike: they wore the same clothes most days, and their muddy, wavy hair was cut in identical styles. Even their eyes were identical, the same hazel color, but Pi knew that the eyes was where the similarities ended. Rho’s expression was always meaner, his posture always more menacing, and he was always much, much more impulsive. For Pi, it was like looking into a mirror and seeing the worst parts of himself reflected back.  
  
Pi actually squirmed when Rho twirled the tip of a strawberry around his lips, darting his tongue out to tease at the broad point of it before he took it sensuously into his mouth and hollowed his cheeks as he bit in. A drip of juice coursed down and between his fingers, Pi tracing every movement of it with his gaze, and he let out a whimper when Rho stopped his chewing and paused to suck his fingers into his mouth to clean himself.  
  
Carolina must have heard him, because she just ruffled his hair gently, leaning down to speak into his ear. “He’s beautiful, isn’t he?”  
  
Pi just whined again when Rho very deliberately met his gaze, this time misusing a pair of cherries by dangling them over his mouth and swiping his tongue between them. This was his brother – his own  _twin brother_  – and he was helpless, getting hard just watching him eat. It was supposed to be wrong, and yet Pi couldn’t seem to stop. Rho was his mirror image, his other half, his perfect complement, and so the attraction he felt for him was something that came to him as naturally as breathing.  
  
Carolina was one of the few people in their lives who didn’t actively try to keep the two of them apart. “It’s okay, I understand,” she said gently, petting his shoulder, his arm, his back. “I can’t resist him either. It’s so difficult for me to be away from you two for so long.”  
  
“Then come more often,” he suggested, reaching out to rest a hand on her knee.  
  
“It’s not that simple, darling,” she sighed. “I wish I could, I really do.”  
  
“Keep us at your estate,” he offered.  
  
“If I could afford to,” she promised, putting her hand over his. “Nothing satisfies me as you two do.”  
  
Pi smiled at the praise, snuggling closer to her, and he was delighted to hear her call Rho over. “Yeah?” he said crassly, crossing his arms as he left his food.  
  
“Now that I have you both here…” A faint blush was coloring her cheeks. “I thought we’d try something different tonight.”  
  
“What,  _him_  in the front and  _me_  in the back?” Rho always did have a way of getting straight to the point. To be fair, it was usually the other way around for a reason: Pi was gentler, more patient, and he could limit himself to shallow movements while Rho plunged in and out with abandon.  
  
“No,” Carolina said. “Something  _really_  different.”  
  
Pi groaned on her lap; if they wouldn’t be inside her at the same time, he wouldn’t get to feel the drag and draw of Rho’s cock against his, separated by so little but feeling that insane pressure all the same. “So we won’t be having any fun at all?” Rho complained for both of them.  
  
“I didn’t say that.” She tittered nervously, her flush spreading across her face. “I want to know… how do you two…”  
  
The rest of her question didn’t need said. “I bottom,” Pi said, simultaneously to Rho’s “I top.”  
  
“Lovely,” she said absently, petting at Pi’s hair again. “I think we ought to let Pi be in the middle, for once.”  
  
“Aw, come on,” Rho burst out, “why can’t I be sandwiched?”  
  
“Do you want to take it from me?” Pi asked him.  
  
“Course not,” he said. Then, as it processed, “Oh.” As usual, he’d opened his mouth before engaging his brain.  
  
“Go on,” she urged the two of them, nudging Pi’s head out of her lap. “I’ll catch up.” She was already undoing the lacing of her bodice, sighing as the sleeves of her dress slipped down to bare her shoulders.  
  
Pi was torn, but Rho wasn’t. His twin reached forward, threading his hand through his hair and cradling the back of his head. Following his lead, Pi sat up straight on the bed, legs on either side of Rho’s waist as he tipped his head back to reveal his throat. “Did you put her up to this?” Rho asked him, standing over him and looking straight into his eyes.  
  
One of the benefits of growing up with a constant companion was that they could read each other’s body language fluently without the need to speak. Pi just stared back into his brother’s gaze, clearly communicating his surprise at this turn of events.  
  
Rho rolled his eyes, meaning ‘if you say so,’ and then gave Carolina a narrow look. He seemed furious that she’d be intruding on what he considered to be something very private.  
  
Pi reached up to touch Rho’s cheek gently, turning his head back to face him. His touch was reassuring, showing his twin how much he wanted this. “It’s okay,” he whispered, just as she’d whispered to him. They had already trusted her with so much – trusting her with this was the next logical step.  
  
The first kiss Rho left on his lips was still hesitant, unsure. Pi licked his way across his lips, stomach tightening at the taste of fruit still clinging there, and when he dabbed his tongue inside his brother’s mouth, he tasted like coming home underneath the sweetened tang. The slight stifled noise in Rho’s throat let Pi know that, despite his reluctance, he was very, very interested in seeing how this all would turn out.  
  
It was nice, for a change, to be able to focus on one another instead of turning their energies elsewhere. Normally they’d be single-mindedly driving Carolina wild, concentrating on her pleasure and not their own; to be able to do this, and in front of her, was a true treat like Pi had never imagined. So he took his time in exploring Rho’s mouth, in touching their tongues together, in caressing his face. Rho was impatient as ever, though, and when his hand tightened in Pi’s hair, Pi could tell that he wanted to hurry things up. It was always like this between the two of them, Rho heedlessly accelerating and Pi frantically trying to temper his impatience. Perhaps, he thought idly as Rho bared his throat and licked along the side of his neck, this was why Carolina had always been attracted to the two of them – diametrically opposed, working against each other and yet managing to make their movements delicately balanced.  
  
When Pi sharply jerked his head, Rho took the hint; he climbed onto the foot of the bed as Pi laid himself down, their legs tangling together to create a maddeningly exquisite friction. Carolina watched them intently, back against the headboard, already looking thoroughly disheveled even though neither of them had touched her yet. Her distracted sighs were the soprano accompaniment to Rho’s low, guttural moans and Pi’s unintentional whimpers.  
  
Every time Rho’s mouth touched his, he let out a little noise in a vain attempt to tell him how  _right_  this felt, and Rho answered in kind, an almost-purring sound coming from his throat when Pi reached down to pull the hem of his shirt over his head. Rho repeated the action, and it wasn’t long until they were simultaneously stripping each other’s breeches off, Pi’s hands dawdling on Rho’s legs along the way.  
  
“Come on,” Rho muttered into his mouth, digging his fingertips possessively into Pi’s ass. “Don’t tease.”  
  
“Don’t rush me,” Pi said right back. He only kissed Rho deeper; he couldn’t get enough of the taste of his mouth for now. He’d only move on to sampling his skin when he was good and ready.  
  
“Hurry up,” Rho insisted, nipping at Pi’s lip to show his eagerness.  
  
Pi tried to get him right back, but Rho’s mouth had moved elsewhere, licking along the shell of his ear before roaming down his neck. “Sss – slow down,” he hissed, knowing he didn’t mean it, knowing Rho would see through the ruse and keep going, always too much too fast.  
  
“Too little, too late,” Rho chuckled against his shoulder, running his teeth gently along the ridge of his collarbone. One hand was already coming up to part Pi’s thighs, a lingering fingertip pressing up against his perineum, rolling his balls in his hand, palm sliding up his shaft.  
  
Two could play at this game, though. He wrestled his brother over, rolling him in Carolina’s direction, and she pulled back her feet with a surprised giggle, her legs spreading unintentionally wider. Pi hardly spared her a second glance, but even a cursory look was enough for him to see that her fingers were leisurely playing between her thighs as she watched them. It sent a shock down his spine to know that her eyes were on them, half-lidded as they were – to know that they were on display for her. As long as she was there, doing  _that_ , Pi was determined to put on a show for her.  
  
So he scrambled on top of Rho, pushing away from him just for a moment. Rho’s expression of surprise was priceless, but once Pi rearranged himself, it morphed into an ear-to-ear grin. Rho knew what was coming, but Carolina didn’t, and so he spared one last glance her way before straddling Rho’s chest and kneeling down to tease his brother’s cock with a hot breath.  
  
This was going to just kill him, and Pi knew it, especially if Rho’s keen was any indication. He could feel his brother struggling to get out from under him, hands pushing at his thighs, but all this did was force Pi’s mouth closer to his cock. He could get his retribution now, show Rho  _exactly_  how it must have felt to be the strawberry he’d molested earlier, and so he oh-so-delicately tongued at his slit, tasting the salt and musk from his pre. Rho’s gasp was mingled with Carolina’s when his mouth plunged down, taking as much as he could in one go, and her muffled swear was the same as his as Pi hollowed his cheeks and sucked his way off.  
  
Rho retaliated in kind. His hands were firm when he spread Pi’s cheeks, fingertips digging in a little harder than strictly necessary, and his tongue was hardened into a point as he traced a line on the underside of Pi’s balls. The stimulation was so intense that Pi had to momentarily abandon what he was doing, reaching up to clutch at his brother’s knee and dig in his fingernails as he let Rho’s cock fall from his mouth with a soft pop. “Oh, am I distracting you?” Rho harassed him, voice muffled by Pi’s body over him.  
  
“I’ll show you distracting,” Pi challenged him. He brought a hand around to circle the base of Rho’s cock with a finger and thumb, using the other three fingers to gather his sac and put pressure on it, and with his other he gently stroked where he’d scratched his brother’s thigh. He caught the dribble leaking from his head with the point of his tongue, then ran it around his corona, humming a pleased note as he stroked away the tension building in Rho’s legs.  
  
Rho upped the ante, swiping his tongue in a long, hot stroke from perineum to sacrum. When Pi’s hand unconsciously tightened, he only laughed, breath cooling the spittle he’d left on his skin. “Problem?”  
  
“My only problem,” Pi growled, mouth latching onto the side of Rho’s cock for the briefest of moments before he pulled away, “is that you won’t  _do it again_.”  
  
“Mm, someone’s getting impatient,” Rho commented lightly. He ran his teeth along the curve of Pi’s ass in a playful half-bite, nibbling at the skin between thumb and fingers.  
  
When Pi gave a long, slurping lick along Rho’s cock, though, his brother bucked beneath him. “I’m not the one that’s about to blow just from this,” he taunted, giving Rho another meaningful squeeze.  
  
“Would you just –  _ahhhhhhhh_ ,” Rho sighed in relief, sagging boneless beneath him as Pi swallowed down his cock again. He loved doing this – could do it all day – had done, once, during one glorious sunshine-filled afternoon when he’d forced Rho to go along with  _his_  rhythm for once. The reward for his diligence was feeling the heavy throb of his brother’s cock in his mouth, tasting the salt of his pre and the clean flavor of his skin, hearing those breathy moans from his throat.  
  
Rho had a means of turning the tables on him, though. Clenching Pi’s cheeks even harder, he licked right at his hole, first a broad swipe with the flat of his tongue and then worming his way closer with the point of it. “Ohhhhgah,” Pi huffed out around his mouthful, nostrils flaring as he tried to remember how to breathe. He moaned when Rho did it again, satisfied when he could feel the reverb down in his restraining hand.  
  
Rho playfully swatted at one of Pi’s cheeks. “Didn’t Mom ever tell you not to talk with your mouth full?” he mocked his twin.  
  
Not to be outdone, Pi deliberately took his mouth away, Rho’s cock falling back against his belly with a wet slapping sound. “She also never thought your cock would be in my mouth – oh!” he cried out again, clawing at his brother’s thigh at another broad slurp of his tongue against the cleft of his ass.  
  
A high giggle sounded from their sides – Pi had almost forgotten Carolina was even there, so absorbed in his twin. “Do you two do this every time?”  
  
“No,” Pi said at the same time as Rho’s “Yes. I mean,  _noooo_ , no. Pi’s just showing off.” Another light smack to Pi’s ass, and then Pi was whimpering into Rho’s hip as that hot, wet tongue started ever-so-delicately probing at his hole.  
  
“Showoff yourself,” Pi retorted, but the words were tight coming out of his throat. In a last-ditch attempt to hide his obvious arousal, he put his mouth back down on Rho’s cock again, spittle dripping past his lips and onto the ring of his thumb and forefinger.  
  
He could vaguely see it when Rho’s head slumped back to the mattress, adam’s apple bared, but even if he couldn’t see it, he could definitely feel each huff of breath against his sensitive regions. “Ffffff – Pi, God, get off, I need to shag you…”  
  
Pi hollowed his cheeks when he drew his mouth off; Rho’s cock was shining wet when he pulled away, looking absolutely and obscenely perfect. He gave one last squeeze before disengaging, crawling towards the headboard and Carolina’s splayed legs. “Carrie,” he called out to her, hands circling her ankles. “How do you want –”  
  
He didn’t get to finish his sentence; Rho reached out for his hips, grasping hard enough to completely immobilize him, and pulled himself up with that leverage. “Come back here,” Rho chastised him playfully, leaving a series of searing kisses at the junction of his neck and shoulder. Pi could feel the head of his cock rutting up against his perineum for one teasing moment before Rho pressed against him, the searing heat of him fighting to get inside.  
  
And then, with a sudden snap and give, he slipped in, delving in too fast, too deep, too much, too full. Pi screwed his eyes shut, fingers grasping desperately at Carolina’s legs as he tried to adjust. Rho’s body was completely covering his now, chest-to-back, thighs pressed together, their feet curling into one another’s, Rho’s arm around his side so his hand could cover his heart and hold him in place. Even their breathing was synchronized at this point, Pi breathing out as Rho gasped in. “Good,” one of them moaned, or maybe even both of them. They’d done this how many times now, and each one was still as intense as the first one so many years ago.  
  
Carolina reached out to both of them, tucking a strand of hair behind each of their ears and kissing them on the mouth in turn. “You’re beautiful,” she breathed. “Both of you.” Rho’s other hand came up to pinch at one of her nipples, and Pi’s wrist was left taking most of the weight as his hand came up to cup her other breast, leaning down to flick his tongue against her peak. She had a perfect set of tits, firm and high, just enough for a good handful. Her mouth fell open at the sensation, a high “oh!” squeaking out of her throat, and when she reached out to hold Pi’s mouth in place, he could smell the sex reeking from her fingers.  
  
Rho, in his impatience, shoved into Pi roughly, the momentum forcing him down onto Carolina’s body. Every thrust from his twin was overpoweringly perfect – how was he supposed to withstand having Carolina on him  _and_  Rho inside him? “You’re going to love it,” Rho reassured him, as if he’d been listening in on Pi’s train of thought. “Look how wet she is for you. She’s so slick – you can’t imagine unless you’ve been there.”  
  
“Shh,” Carolina soothed him, moving her body beneath his so that Pi’s cock was just brushing against her folds. She was practically dripping around him, and he wasn’t expecting how easy it would be to slip inside until she pulled herself down onto him. “Oh, boys,” she sighed, squirming as she sank down, down. “Mm, you really  _are_  identical twins, aren’t you?”  
  
It took a moment for Pi to puzzle out her meaning, but even that fell out of his mind quickly enough when Rho pushed back and slammed into him again, the movement drawing Pi out of her and then thrusting back in. “Oh,” Pi cried out, and then “Oh, God” when Rho did it again, and then an “Oh my God” as he took Rho’s momentum and modulated it, moving shallowly in Carolina with each pull of his body.  
  
Good, so good, all of it, but so intense, too. Just when Pi thought he’d reached a new ultimate in sensation, Rho would change his angle, or Carolina would latch her mouth onto his neck, or he’d see Carolina and Rho kissing over his shoulder, and he spiraled higher, ever higher. He was jostled between them in a perfect rhythm, the force of Rho’s thrusts making up for his own lack of effort, and it was as much as he could do just to hold on and enjoy the moment.  
  
Carolina felt so different around him like this, his thrusts smooth and fluid instead of difficult and constricted, and her moans sounded louder, too, when they were directed straight to his ear. Pi buried his forehead between the slopes of her breasts, slipping frictionless against her as Rho bucked into him again and again and again. Filling Carolina, stretched around his brother’s cock – it had been in every fantasy of his since she first started calling on the two of them, and the reality was even better. “This is…” The rest of his sentence trailed off into a wordless cry as he saw stars behind his eyes, balls-deep in Carolina as the head of Rho’s cock pushed right against his hot spot.  
  
“She’s perfect, isn’t she?” Rho purred into his ear, completing his sentence. She was a vision beneath him, covered in a sheen of sweat, curls tangled around her head on her pillow, tongue darting out of her mouth every so often to re-wet her lips. Of course she was perfect. “Mm, and so are you,” Rho murmured. “Tight – nngh, good…”  
  
Another change of angle from Rho had Pi moaning in both frustration and relief. Rho made the same sound – so he was close, too. All they needed was for Carolina to say the word. “Boys – Pi, Rho, oh!” she babbled out, nails digging into Pi’s shoulders as she somehow became impossibly tighter around him, constricting him so sweetly. Pi rocked into her again and again with each perfect thrust from Rho, never stopping his movements, and eventually she relaxed around him, all the tension gone from her body.  
  
Pi wasn’t expecting Rho to yank him away from her so quickly, and he mewled at the absence of that wet heat around him. But Rho only pounded into him harder, and Pi realized with a heart-dropping jolt that Rho had been holding back on him because of her. This, this was the impatient twin he knew, taking what he wanted and damn the rest.  
  
His heart was hammering hard against Rho’s hand still on his chest, and he breathed through his nose, trying to keep the inevitable at bay – but when his brother’s fist found his cock and pumped once, twice, three times, slow and out of rhythm with his own thrusts but just the way Pi liked it, his pretense was over. Every motion from Rho was urging him to give up, give in, let go.  
  
He was still startled when his orgasm ripped through him, sizzling up his spine and blanking out his brain, the sheer magnitude of it threatening to leave him in pieces. Rho’s hand was still on him, working him through it, and he was only dimly aware that he was shooting onto the soft skin of Carolina’s belly – he was too consumed with his unconscious clench only taking Rho in further, further. Finally, Rho’s hips snapped into place, and Pi felt ridiculously, unbelievably filled as his brother swelled and pulsed in him, collapsing down onto him, lazy open mouth pressing against the jutting bone at the base of his neck.  
  
They caught their breath in the same rhythm. Pi gently flexed his fingers, trying to get the feeling back in him, and he let his feet finally uncurl. Rho pulled away with an undignified squelch. “Amazing,” he sighed as he fell off of Pi’s back and into one of Carolina’s waiting arms.  
  
Pi might have mumbled something, but it was all gibberish, and the only person it would have made sense to was Rho. To his surprise, though, Carolina was the one to respond, pulling him down from over her so he could curl into her side. “I agree,” she murmured, kissing the place where his hairline met his forehead.  
  
“And soon,” Rho insisted. He reached for Pi’s arm over Carolina’s breasts, petting his side.  
  
“After the  _bal_ ,” she assured them. She only hugged them tighter when they made vague noises of protest, sweat-slick skin sliding together. “I know. But it’s not long now.” Pi nuzzled against her neck, crooning a vague sound of assent, but she seemed to know what he meant. “No, you can’t come. Only animal pets are allowed.”  
  
“We could wear collars and leashes,” Rho drawled.  
  
“No, no!” Her peal of laughter was fluid and clear. “Oh, what time is it…” Pi groaned and brought a clumsy hand up to shade her eyes, but she pushed it aside easily enough so she could see the time glass on the wall near the doorframe. “Mm, I have to go,” she said softly, extricating herself from between the two pairs of grasping arms trying to keep her in place. “You don’t have to sound so dejected. I’m not leaving forever.”  
  
“We’ll miss you,” they murmured in unison, not meaning to say it together but reinforcing the other’s statement nonetheless.  
  
“You’ll take care of each other, won’t you?” Her words were muffled by her dress as she pulled it back over her head, and she gathered back her dampened hair and pinned it effortlessly into a loose bun. Her eyes glittered and her smile was wicked when she looked back at the two of them still slumped on the bed. “I know you can.”  
  
“Not the same,” Rho moaned, but he seemed happy enough with his brother by his side; he pulled Pi to his chest, holding him so close that Pi could swear that their heartbeats were synchronized.  
  
In only a few moments, she was fully dressed, only looking a little rumpled. “Don’t do anyone I wouldn’t do,” she admonished them with a wink and a smile as she left.  
  
Rho just sighed, his breath hot in Pi’s hair. “And you’re sure you didn’t put her up to this?”  
  
“Sure,” was all Pi had the energy to say, snuggling closer to his twin.  
  
A long pause, with the only sound in the room their deep breathing. “Should do it again,” Rho muttered against his shoulder, voicing their identical thoughts.  
  
“Right  _now_?” Pi teased him back. “I can hardly see, give me a minute.”  
  
“Not right now.” Pi could feel Rho’s laughter through his back. “But soon.”  
  
Pi could live with ‘soon’. Soon meant potential, meant anticipation, meant implications of possibilities they hadn’t even considered yet. More to the point, it meant he could finally let himself rest in the comforting embrace he’d shared with Rho since before they were born. He couldn’t imagine being this intimate with anyone but Rho; he’d never fallen asleep curled up in anyone else, never even had a desire to. They’d been told all their lives that this was wrong, sinful, perverse, but to Pi, it only made sense. Who else could he trust with his everything, if not his doppel? And he smiled, because the little contented hum in his ear meant that Rho trusted him with just as much – that they really were of the same mind.


	10. Interlude IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sigma gets caught in an awkward position with Epsilon - by Delta. It's gonna take a lot to dig himself out of this hole, if he doesn't just keep digging himself deeper.

Sigma rapped twice on Epsilon’s doorframe. “You here?”  
  
Of course he was  _here_  – curled on his bed, knees to his chest, staring glumly into the corner of his room. Sigma was more concerned about whether he was  _present_. “Nyeh, come in.”  
  
Still lost in his thoughts, then. Sigma stepped gingerly into his room, picking his way through scattered trinkets and items of clothing. He hated thinking like a parent, but he really ought to scold Epsilon for keeping his space like this. Instead of chastising him, though, he sat at the chair at Epsilon’s desk, throwing an arm over the back of the chair at his side. “You said you wanted to talk to me.”  
  
“Yeah.” Sigma watched him shake off his reverie as he turned to face him. “Have a good fuck?”  
  
“Epsilon, you’re not supposed to kiss and tell. I have to… keep client confidentiality,” he fumbled as Epsilon rolled his eyes at him. “Yes, it was fantastic, all right?” he admitted. “Now what did you want to talk about?”  
  
“I don’t know.” Of course he did – they both knew – but Sigma felt a pang of sympathy at the embarrassed flush on Epsilon’s cheeks. “I just want to know what I’m getting into here.”  
  
Ah, that’s right, his sixteenth birthday was coming up soon. “Are you scared?” he asked softly.  
  
“No!” he said vehemently, in a tone that obviously meant ‘yes’.  
  
“It’s okay to be scared, sweetie,” Sigma told him. He scooted closer to Epsilon, poorly-tied kimono falling from his shoulder, and put an arm around him for physical comfort. “But I have to say, there’s really nothing to worry about. They don’t expect you to know everything.”  
  
“Delta makes it out like every time’s a fucking pop quiz or something,” Epsilon scoffed.  
  
“Can I tell you a secret?” Sigma squeezed his shoulder. “It’s actually fun.”  
  
Epsilon laughed, but the sound was mirthless. “What other shit has he not told me?”  
  
“If he hasn’t told you, it’s because you don’t need to know.” He paused, pulling his kimono back up. “Or it’s because he doesn’t know  _how_  to tell you.”  
  
“He can’t even tell me what it’s like. That’s the simplest fucking question I can think of!” Epsilon punched his bed for emphasis.  
  
“Well, in Delta’s defense, it’s hard to describe.” Sigma thought back on the past few hours, when he’d been deliciously twisted in Maine’s sheets. Even recalling the memory made a faint smile play on his lips, and he felt the familiar happy warmth in his chest. “It’s a lot like being naked,” he settled on. “Not just clothesless, but really  _naked_ , open and vulnerable and anxious. The best part about it is that you’re sharing that feeling with someone else – trusting them to be gentle with your nakedness. And they’re defenseless in front of you, too. You can see it in their eyes, if you’re really looking. There’s excitement in baring yourself to someone else like that.”  
  
Epsilon shivered under his hold. “Sounds intense.”  
  
“It is. But that’s part of what makes it so good. You’re – well,  _feeling it out_  with someone. Seeing what turns them on, what makes them light up. And they’re doing the same with you.” Sigma rested his chin in Epsilon’s hair, trying to come up with the right words. “The tension really builds up. But it’s not just you who’s nervous or shy or clumsy – it’s the other person, too.”  
  
Epsilon interrupted him in the middle of his contemplation. “Have you ever had to fuck someone who was just shit-faced ugly?”  
  
Sigma laughed. “That’s a way to put it. Really, looks don’t matter as much as you’d think. They help, definitely, but they’re not the be-all end-all. What’s most important – for me, anyway – is that the two of us have some kind of emotional resonance. That we have a kind of compatibility.”  
  
Though he should have been used to Epsilon’s abrupt manner by now, Sigma still found his next question disorienting. “Have you ever been in love?”  
  
“I thought you only wanted to ask me about sex,” Sigma dodged.  
  
“Just answer my goddamn question!” Epsilon snapped.  
  
“I can see why Delta gets so frustrated with you,” Sigma grumbled. He stroked Epsilon’s arm absently as he thought on his answer.  
  
“Come  _on_ ,” Epsilon complained. “It’s a simple yes-or-no question.”  
  
“And one that’s not to be taken lightly,” Sigma told him. “It’s a weighty feeling, and when you’re deep in it – when you let it surround you – it can really change you.” He thought of clients gone by, each with their individual charms; though he’d cared for them and enjoyed their company, those weren’t enough to say he truly loved any of them. Even with Maine, he wasn’t in love. Not yet, anyhow. Though his feelings for his prince were powerful enough to bring out a slight blush, he had to admit that for now, he was merely deeply in lust.  
  
His recollections wandered to green eyes and gold hair, to hands with long but precise fingers, to a mind that was as uncompromising as any Sigma had ever known. To chess games, to raising Epsilon, to bantering, to frustration, to accidental duets between harp and violin, to a single stolen kiss, to those small smiles that came none-too-frequently. “You’re smiling,” Epsilon said quietly.  
  
“Yes.” He ruffled the kid’s hair. “Yes, I’ve been in love.”  
  
Epsilon sighed. “Is there any other shit Delta hasn’t told me?”  
  
“Probably anything that would actually be helpful or useful,” Sigma muttered, making Epsilon laugh. “I mean, has he taught  _you_  any techniques?”  
  
“Absolutely fuck-all,” Epsilon spat out. “Don’t even know how to kiss.”  
  
Sigma pulled away so he could see Epsilon’s face. “Is that supposed to be a hint?”  
  
“I asked to practice, once,” Epsilon mumbled, squirming with embarrassment. “He said all the usual shit he does.  _You must remain unsullied_  my ass.”  
  
“Well, he’s right – you do have to stay a virgin for now, at least until your birthday.” Was there any way Sigma could circumvent that? Would Epsilon’s new benefactor be able to tell that he’d had instruction via implementation? “You know what,” he said eventually, “we never need to tell anyone about this. Promise?”  
  
Epsilon grinned. “Promise.”  
  
“All right, then.” Sigma rearranged himself on the bed, getting a better angle towards Epsilon’s face. “Have you ever been kissed before?”  
  
The way Epsilon flushed and avoided his gaze was denial enough. Eventually, he squeaked out a “no.”  
  
“It’s okay,” Sigma told him, brushing the fringe out of his face. “It’s nothing to be embarrassed about.” Epsilon nodded. “Now, this is just to ease you into it, so… close your eyes and just keep still, okay?”  
  
Epsilon obeyed, eyelashes fluttering, lips slightly parted. He looked so innocent, so virginal, and now that it came to this, Sigma wasn’t sure if he could follow through. “Just fuckin’  _do_  it, goddamn,” Epsilon burst out, eyes scrunched tightly shut.  
  
He could do this – had done it thousands upon thousands of times – but just when he had finally worked up the courage and leaned forward the slightest bit, he caught a glimpse of green in the doorway. “Delta?!” He felt his stomach drop out and leap into his throat simultaneously, and he lost his balance in a fit of uncharacteristic clumsiness.  
  
Delta was watching the scene from the doorway with narrowed eyes. “I had not received your report. Logic dictated that if you were not entertaining a client, you would be here or in your own room. What is the meaning of this?”  
  
Epsilon wheeled around, about to tell Delta exactly what was going on in here, but Sigma reached out just in time, keeping his arm in a tight grip to tell him wordlessly not to speak. “Remember when Epsilon told me he needed to talk to me? That’s all this was.” Delta’s stare continued to intensify, though, and Sigma felt pinned. “He also wanted to get in some practice,” he fibbed. “Isn’t that right, Epsilon?” Like a good boy, Epsilon nodded.  
  
Delta, though, was not appeased. “What, precisely, were you practicing?”  
  
The question was clearly intended for Epsilon. Sigma only squeezed the kid’s arm harder when he answered in his stead. “Basic seduction skills.” It wasn’t entirely a lie; Epsilon had made him succumb against his better judgment. “He didn’t learn that from me – did you teach him?”  
  
“An admirable attempt at deceit,” Delta said. It wasn’t so much his tone as his still-steely gaze that told Sigma that he’d known exactly what they were up to. “Epsilon remains unsullied?”  
  
“Not for lack of trying,” the kid grumbled, wrenching his arm from Sigma’s hold.  
  
“Sigma, I must speak with you,” Delta said. “Privately,” he added once Sigma opened his mouth to protest. “Now.”  
  
Sigma’s gut tightened when he left Epsilon’s side to join Delta at the threshold. For a semblance of privacy, Delta shut Epsilon’s door once both of them were in the hall. “I acknowledge that right now you may be our most valuable employee because of your connection to the Meta,” Delta hissed, ignoring Sigma’s sounds of protest at the name, “but this does not give you the right to do as you please. I expected your report tonight, as I do this time every week. It is completely illogical for you to conclude that, since you host our most illustrious client, you no longer report to me.”  
  
So he was going to get the I’m-your-boss lecture first. How refreshing. “Look, Delta, what’s more important to the House right now? My income or my intel?” he retorted.  
  
“Your information,” Delta said, as if it were obvious. “You are the only one of us to be constantly engaging the Meta.”  
  
“Stop calling him that!”  
  
Delta ignored Sigma’s outburst. “Your income, and whatever gifts he may present to you, are dependent on your remaining close to him. Any personal benefit you may receive is incidental to your services to the Crown.”  
  
“And that’s another thing!” Sigma shouted. “Why am I informing on the crown prince  _to the Crown_?”  
  
“The logic is sound,” Delta said vaguely. “Do not question the methods.”  
  
“I’m sure the Director would have something to say about this,” Sigma snarled.  
  
“The Director has seen my reports,” Delta told him. “He has made no objections to their contents or any injunctions against your contacts.” His eyes narrowed. “Very much unlike his plausible reaction to what I just witnessed.”  
  
And now was the part where Delta told him off for a possible breach of their ward’s contract. “Okay, first of all,” Sigma argued, “we didn’t do anything – you interrupted us before anything happened. Second of all – honestly, the kid’s almost sixteen and he hasn’t even been kissed yet. Don’t you think that sounds a little off, even to a prospective bidder?”  
  
“The bidders are offering precisely  _because_  of that unusual property,” Delta reminded him. “I am obligated to report any potential breach in his contract.”  
  
“ _Potential breach_? One kiss, Dee! Is it really so bad?”  
  
“Yes – particularly when stolen.” Delta’s gaze hardened even further.  
  
The wording made Sigma realize, with a sudden lurch of perspective, that Delta was no longer talking solely about Epsilon. “I’d say I’m sorry, but I’m not,” he said defensively. “I just give people what they ask for.”  
  
Sigma heard a rustling of papers; when he looked down, he could see Delta’s hand shaking. “I admit that when I asked you to share my duties in tutoring Epsilon, I could not have predicted your liberal interpretation of my meaning.”  
  
“We just have different teaching styles.” Sigma shrugged, the fluid motion making the shoulder of his kimono fall again. Delta followed the path of his sleeve, but Sigma couldn’t say anything about it – he was on thin enough ice as it was. Frantically trying to atone, he blurted out, “If there’s something I could do differently, just – please, Dee, I know I messed up…”  
  
“I would take this responsibility away from you,” Delta mused, “but I simply no longer have the time to teach. There are reports of significant civil unrest at several of the Outposts, and synthesizing these reports is only becoming more time-consuming as a result.” He met Sigma’s gaze again, his eyes sparkling with a hint of mirth. “I doubt you can manage to irreparably scar him in the scant time remaining until he comes of age.”  
  
“When you say it like that, I hear it as a challenge,” Sigma joked. “If he asks to get perverted –”  
  
“Then delay him.”  
  
Sigma rolled his eyes. “How does that saying go about questions and lies?”  
  
“I have no patience for witty quips.” Indeed, around Sigma, Delta seemed to have no patience at all. “A lie of omission will serve Epsilon better at this point. And on the topic of omission, I revert our conversation back to its original point: your missing report.”  
  
“Okay, now  _that_  I  _am_  sorry for,” Sigma apologized. “It’s sitting on my vanity half-finished, and it doesn’t have a log of tonight yet. Do you want it as-is, or…?”  
  
“I can accept an oral report for what you do not have written,” Delta reassured him. The sudden clench of his fist around his papers was a reminder to Sigma not to get any ideas about how to take ‘oral’ out of context.  
  
“My room, then?” Delta nodded, and Sigma reached out a hand to guide him there. To his surprise, given how tense Delta was, his advance wasn’t rejected – in fact, Delta laced their hands together, his grip firmly pressing his palm against Sigma’s. “D’you think we’re doing right by him?” he pondered, half a rhetorical question and half asking for confidence.  
  
“Epsilon has many other mentors here,” Delta pointed out.  
  
“I guess. What’s that saying about villages and kids?”  
  
“Another dissatisfying aphorism, I assume?”  
  
“Tell me about it,” Sigma grumbled. “Sometimes I feel like we’re his only family – that it’s just us doing the parenting around here.”  
  
“Untrue. Epsilon was in Aleph’s care before he was entrusted to me,” Delta reminded him.  
  
“You really think she’s his mother?” It was a popular theory around the brothel, one not spoken of to either Aleph or Epsilon. They certainly looked similar enough – the same skin, hair, eyes.  
  
“Based on my calculations,” Delta said, “Aleph was fourteen when Epsilon was born.”  
  
“Not out of the question,” Sigma insisted. She was a whore, after all. Maybe she’d decided to keep one. Though fourteen would have been on the low end, especially given the age restriction in the Teahouse…  
  
Delta interrupted his train of thought. “I have sufficient evidence that Aleph and Epsilon are not related.”  
  
“Then he really is an orphan.” Sigma dragged Delta into his room, not letting go of his hand while he searched under the powders, perfumes, and oils on his vanity for his report. “And you’re pretty much the closest thing to a father-figure he has.”  
  
Delta gently disengaged from Sigma’s grip, moving to sit on his bed. Sigma felt his heart flutter a little – Delta’s clean scent would stick there. “In any traditional family metaphor, I believe that would make you Epsilon’s mother.”  
  
“Oh, you  _wound_  me,” Sigma joked, smiling at him over his shoulder as he continued to rummage around. “I thought we were far beyond traditional by now. And I am  _not_  his mother. Oh, here it is!” His report had been wedged between the jar holding his brushes and the orchid oil he’d worn tonight. He’d confused it for his stockpile of Maine’s frequent letters to him.  
  
Delta sneered at the tackiness of spilled oil on the parchment, but he took the report from Sigma’s hand anyhow. “Sit,” he instructed Sigma, indicating his vanity stool.  
  
Sigma dragged it close to where Delta was sitting; once he was situated, his knees were gently leaning against Delta’s. “Don’t you have anything to write with?”  
  
“There is no need for me to document this information while you relay it to me.”  
  
“Oh, right,” Sigma said playfully, “your didactic memory.”  
  
“Eidetic,” Delta corrected him.  
  
“I said it wrong on purpose, Dee. It was a  _joke_.”  
  
“Ah. Deliberate misuse of words to facilitate humor.” But there was a small up-quirk at the corner of Delta’s mouth that couldn’t hide from Sigma’s sight. He was already beginning to get back into Delta’s good graces.  
  
And so he smiled. “Well, here’s the skinny.” It took hours to deliver the rest of his report, but it was due to the meandering gossip that he and Delta were sharing along the way. Delta even smiled once, slightly nudging Sigma’s knee to acknowledge another wisecrack. It was well past dawn when Sigma found himself too hoarse to continue, and Delta even gifted him with a slight stroke to his shoulder when he lay down to sleep.  
  
When he dreamed, it was of that one clandestine kiss.


	11. Part V

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Omega has privileges enough to make house calls. Doc cashes in a favor.

The holdfast of Baron Washington was the same as when Omega had last been there. The reception hall was cold and uninviting. Every sound echoed from bare stone walls; the occasional page passed through, heavy footsteps continuing long after he was gone to deliver his message. Everything was a muted grey, shot through occasionally with the yellow of a burning torch. The room itself was unadorned, but it served its function well – a reflection of the man who lived here.  
  
However, Omega wasn’t here to see the Baron. He was on official business from the Teahouse, and though he wished he could stay away from the mansion for longer, he abhorred this castle even more. The low stool he was sitting on was hurting his posture, and he’d been forced to lay his black equipment bag on the floor, as filthy as it was. More than that, though, the pervasive stench of  _failure_  was everywhere.  
  
Finally, after a period of waiting which had been much too long to be considered hospitable, a guardsman entered the antechamber. He was wearing the badge of the Washington coat of arms, but Omega didn’t recognize his face. “State your business,” he said brusquely.  
  
Foolish peon. “I am here to see the Baron’s personal surgeon.”  
  
The guard crossed his arms. “And your business with him?”  
  
“Ah, you must be new here.” Omega smirked, reclining against the wall; he could feel the chill of the stone through the back of his shirt. “This is not the first time I have called on the surgeon, and it will not be the last. There is a…” He paused to pick the vocabulary carefully. “Long-standing relationship, you could say, between himself and the agency I represent. He renders services to our employees, and in return he has selected me to, ah, render services reciprocally.”  
  
“And which agency do you represent?” The guard’s eyes narrowed; Omega could see a hand twitching closer to the dirk sheathed at his waist.  
  
“I wouldn’t do that,” he said casually, rooting around in his bag. Ah, there it was, it came to hand so easily: a barber’s razor, catching the light of the torches along its slicing edge as he pulled it out. “You have such a nice position here. Pity if something were to happen to it.”  
  
The hand retreated, but the guard was still hard-edged. “Answer my question.”  
  
“I am here representing the Crown, in a roundabout fashion.” He twirled the razor, handle twining between his fingers; the barbells through the backs of his knuckles only helped.  
  
The guard immediately stood straighter. “My full apologies, Mister…”  
  
“Call me Omega.” He stilled the metal in his hand. “Have I passed?”  
  
“Excuse me, sir?”  
  
Omega smirked, deliberately showing his teeth. “Your test. You were testing me.” It wasn’t a question, but he quirked an eyebrow all the same.  
  
The guard just stood there, looking confused, torn between hustling Omega out of there and leading him to the surgeon’s chambers. Eventually, he leaned down in a half-bow, his eyes never leaving Omega’s. “At your service, sir,” he said stiffly before exiting.  
  
Well, that had been unpleasant. Omega stowed his razor away before picking up his bag and striding out of the entrance hall. He’d have to take it out on the surgeon. Best not to break him, though – Doc was his favorite plaything.  
  
\--  
  
And so it was that Omega found himself flogging the ever-loving life out of a certain medic who was bent over a padded sawhorse, ankles bound to the legs and wrists bound to the bench.  
  
Doc was not homosexual. He had insisted on this fact multiple times over the course of their arrangement, had sworn by it even with Omega’s cock in his ass. His words didn’t matter so terribly to Omega. Regardless of Doc’s orientation, their mutual proclivity to pain was compatible enough: Omega loved giving it, and Doc loved taking it any way he could get it.  
  
Omega had asked him, once, about the paradox of a masochistic pacifist. Their first meeting, Doc had made a pot of strong chai tea, and they had both sipped at it during their negotiations, even this small act a bit of foreplay for the scene to come. “Well, I don’t want to be disliked, or to hurt people, or to offend them, or anything like that,” Doc had told him, eyes averted to one of the purple tapestries insulating the stone walls of his chambers. “I guess I’d just rather have them hurt me instead.”  
  
The chai had become a ritual of theirs; Omega could taste the earthy spice of it under his tongue as he brought his arm back once again. Doc’s moans were punctuated by the slap of leather on skin, cracking in the middle, just the way Omega liked them. “Confess, you fool.”  
  
“I – ah! – I complained to Wash about – agh – about the way he’s been treating me, and I felt so bad,” he offered up, his guilt laid bare for Omega.  
  
“Good,” he murmured. Up, down, whip crack, another welt rising on his back. His skin would be purple with bruises come morning. Omega was thankful that Doc’s personal page had already become used to the noises that invariably permeated these sessions; he wasn’t interrupted in his methodical flogging by a well-meaning boy intending to assess whether Doc had been harmed. Of course, that had stopped when the page had found them in this compromising position and Omega had ripped his tongue out in vengeance. He still made for a perfectly good assistant.  
  
Doc’s cries were coming closer together now, broken only by his wet, shuddering gasps for breath. With every strike, he tried to curl himself up into the impact, seeking out the hurt and claiming it for his own, but Omega had him bound too thoroughly for there to be any relief, any respite. “Please,” he was begging now, “please, please…”  
  
“Please what?” Omega chided him. “Use your words, fool.”  
  
“More…” he moaned. His face was flushed with arousal, his eyes tightly shut, and after the one word escaped his mouth, he bit his lip to keep from speaking again.  
  
Hearing Doc beg for more was a sure sign to give him less. Omega knew Doc’s body better than the medic himself did – it was almost as if they shared it during these sessions, Omega taking over and thoroughly possessing him, infecting him with his touch. He threw the whip aside, leaving it with his other implements, and instead reached out to touch Doc’s back with his bare hand. Doc was hot to the touch, and there were beads of blood where the blunt force of the whip had managed to break the skin. “Magnificent,” he purred, running his palm down Doc’s spine.  
  
When he paused to press his bloodied fingertips against Doc’s hole, the medic whined desperately, pushing back as far as he could. Omega smacked his ass, the crack echoing from the stone walls, and Doc broke down into little babbling words. “Please, I want – please, just – O’Malley,  _please_ …”  
  
“Hmm.” He pretended to consider Doc’s plea, affecting an absent-mindedness when he tapped his hole with the pad of one finger, but his mind was already made up. It would be more amusing to put him through the denial of what he so badly wanted. Having to admit that he needed Omega to fill him would be the ultimate humiliation for Doc. “No,” he said eventually, tracing a line across his perineum, between his balls, just to the base of his cock. “I think not.”  
  
“But –”  
  
“Franklin Chun DuFresne, if you utter one more syllable of doubt, I will leave you here as you are, bound and unfulfilled.” Yes, that got him to be quiet. Doc flinched when he caressed his thigh, mewled when his nails scraped ever-so-lightly across the jutting bone of his hip, but the most delicious reaction he saved for when Omega’s hand finally wrapped around his cock. He knew the sweat and pre slicking his hand was only making it worse, because Doc kept knocking his hips against the sawhorse, frantically trying to thrust into Omega’s hand and get whatever friction he could. “Slut,” he said appreciatively, clenching his fist until it was squeezing Doc’s cock so tightly that he had nowhere to move.  
  
“Please – aagh – I want – oh,  _yes_  – O’Malley…” He probably didn’t realize there were words coming out of his mouth. Judging by the way his eyes were rolling back in his head, he wasn’t even here right now, but deep, deep in subspace. It would be hell trying to get him back out and functioning at even a base level by the time Omega left. But he’d do it. Doc was his favorite, after all. Couldn’t have fun with a broken toy.  
  
In the meantime, it was time to push that limit, test his breaking point, force him to humiliation, hurt him mentally as well as physically. “Say it,” he growled into Doc’s ear, his other fist clenching in his hair and holding him in place.  
  
“I – please – O’Malley – hnrg…” He was falling apart under his hands, frantic with the need for contact, desperate for whatever might provide his release.  
  
“Say it,” Omega hissed again, only pulling his hair harder.  
  
“Please, I – I want…” To coax it out of him, Omega made a smooth, clenching stroke on his cock, and Doc’s voice petered out into a moan before his hand stopped again. “I want your – I want you in- inside me. Please…” Even the whisper echoed in the stone-cold silence of their little dungeon.  
  
“What was that?”  
  
Doc’s voice only got more desperate when Omega’s fists closed in harder on his hair and his cock. “Inside me. Please!”   
  
“But do you deserve it, hmm?” Omega purred. He ruffled Doc’s hair before smoothing over his back again, collecting all the blood he could on his palm. And then he spanked him again; when he pulled back his hand, he saw that it had left a perfect print in sticky red. “I asked you a question. Do you deserve it?”  
  
“Nnnnnnuh…” It was all he had the energy to get out. Even better, it was true – at least by Omega’s standards. He’d continue to hold Doc to the expectation of perfection, continue to give in to him when Doc could never measure up. It was a lovely game, it really was, especially when it caused him this much torment.  
  
It only felt fair to ease the pressure on both of them, but in order to provide mental relief, he had to cause even more physical pain. With a hand at the nook where Doc’s shoulder met his neck, he pulled himself into him, stabbing into that heat with absolutely no forgiveness. Doc would have to earn his absolution tonight, and each scream, tear, twitch was his payment. “What do you say?” he demanded.  
  
“Thank you…” The words were lost in a rush of breath, buried under the slap of skin on skin every time Omega’s hips snapped against Doc’s already-abused ass.  
  
Omega could swear he’d heard something, but he had to be sure. “What do you say?”  
  
“Thank you – thank you thank you thank you thank you…” Doc’s voice turned into a mindless litany as Omega’s cock continued to ram him. Omega particularly enjoyed the way the medic scarcely let himself draw breath, so intensely was he focused on keeping Omega’s barrage of sensation coming. He understood, at least, that his words were rewarded with exactly what he needed, and so he never stopped praising Omega for violating him, for hurting him, for humiliating him.  
  
It was only when Doc said something that was more like ‘close’ that Omega became outright cruel again, digging his nails into the sensitive muscles of his hips. Modulating his voice when he was so intensely focused had been a challenge for Omega, at first, but just as all things, he had learned to do it and used his skills gratefully. “You come when I tell you to,” he growled.  
  
And just like that, Doc’s prayer turned to “please, please, please,” even as the rope Omega had used to bind him bit into the skin of his wrists and ankles and started to draw blood, even as Omega used him as harshly as he could, even as Omega fondled him so roughly that he let out a scream. If Omega could commission a portrait of anything, it would be of this moment, the way Doc last any shred of his self-respect in the search for sensation, the curve of his spine wordlessly begging for more, those plush lips falling open in a vain attempt to catch his breath.  
  
He was feeling indulgent tonight. Besides, it had been too long since he’d been allowed out of the Councillor’s sight to make this little visit. He’d have to remember to come more often than three times a year. It wasn’t enough time to truly enjoy what he’d been given here. A few more thrusts and then his hand fisted around Doc’s cock again, jerking hard and fast. “Now or never, fool.”  
  
Doc obliged him, throwing his head back with a delighted scream as he splattered the stone floor with his cum. His ass clenched impossibly tighter around Omega’s cock, and it was too easy to slam and slam and slam until he reached that point himself.  
  
The next few moments were a blur with no sound. Despite his dislike for the boy, he would never let Doc’s page see him like this. The only thing keeping him upright was the fact that he was still bound to the sawhorse; once Omega untied him, he sagged onto it, letting out a happy sigh. He wasn’t too heavy for Omega to carry him, and so he slid his shoulders under Doc’s chest and bore the brunt of his weight there as he carried him.  
  
There was a pallet in the corner that Doc used for recovery. Omega was happy to see that it had at least been cleaned since the last time – he’d never seen such a mess of blood. He’d thought Doc didn’t have the strength to speak, but he was proven wrong when Doc croaked out “purple bottle, please” past chapped lips. Once he was on his cot, he slumped, unable to move.  
  
Omega rolled his eyes, but complied anyhow. There was only one purple bottle amongst his apothecary remedies, and when he smeared some of its contents along his fingertips, he found that the gel-liquid inside was cool to the touch, soothing away any residual burns that had been left from the rope and the whip. “I do hope you don’t expect me to smear this onto you,” he sniffed.  
  
“Nuhhh,” was his dissent. “L’v it f’r the page.” His face was smashed into the pallet, his eyes closed, mouth half-open. He was a right mess – just the way Omega liked him.  
  
“Patch yourself up,” Omega instructed him. “I expect you to be as good as new the next time I visit.”  
  
“When?”  
  
Omega reached down to swat the part of Doc’s face that he’d foolishly left exposed. The blow wasn’t hard, more of a teasing chastisement than anything else, and he saw the corner of Doc’s mouth twitch upwards. They had their own code of body language by now. That little swat had been close to kindness. “Don’t ask me questions, fool.”  
  
Doc was smirking now, though he looked about to pass out from exhaustion. “See you soon.”  
  
Omega ruffled his hair. “Fool.” But a brilliant fool nonetheless.  
  
It only took a moment to pull his clothes on, but cleaning his implements took much longer. Doc let out the occasional sniffle or groan as he cleaned the blood from his razor, the gore from the end of his whip. All of it was followed up with sterilizing everything, and he hissed when the rubbing alcohol he used wormed its way into the piercings on the backs of his hands. At a particularly loud sound of pain, he whipped around – but Doc wasn’t thrashing or bleeding out. “Send him in when you leave…” he mumbled. Feverish, but he would live.  
  
The page was waiting in the hallway when Omega exited the dungeon, hands clenched together, watery eyes wide. He obviously hadn’t forgotten the pain of Omega taking his tongue away. “Make sure he doesn’t die,” he said in a well-rehearsed exasperated sigh. When the boy darted away, he finally allowed himself to smirk. He really ought to do this more often. If only there weren’t such restrictions on his comings and goings from the Teahouse. It was almost as if they considered him lethal.  
  
His smirk became a full-on toothy grin as he made his way to the carriage waiting for him at the gate to the Baron’s stronghold. There had to be a way to get out. The issue was one of leverage. And he had a full night’s ride to plot the particulars.


	12. Interlude V

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sigma returns from an all-night engagement at the District, and Delta is less than pleased with the result.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> minor MINOR crossover with a Hunger Games brothelverse

“Too cold for this,” Sigma muttered to himself as the night air hit his skin. It was a short walk from the carriage point to the front entrance of the Teahouse, but the chilly autumn wind snaked its way up his skirts and left goosebumps where it caressed him. Cinna should have known better than to dress him like this, but the man had always been more about semblance and less about sense.  
  
The mansion should have been winding down by now, but there were still some lowballers lingering in the entrance hall, dandling girls on their laps or fondling the serving girls that brought their wine. A few of the drunks leered at him when he passed, saying rude little nothings that made him want to spit with distaste, but the worst was when one of the men called after him, loudly, that people like him didn’t have a right to exist. That it was bad enough he was a whore, but a male whore who thought he was a woman was worse.  
  
This was the home he knew, unpleasantness and all. He shrugged off the insults that were thrown at him, appearing serene while he passed everyone else on the main floor. There was another reason why they stared: he appalled some, yes, but he was also  _beautiful_ , especially with Cinna’s help. The stylist was a mastermind with fabric, and he knew that with every step, his dress moved around his frame and flickered in a way that made him look like he was on fire. Even the deep kohl around his eyes only enhanced the effect – his eyes glowed in his face with the hot gold of lit coals.  
  
The jeering was abruptly cut off when he exited the hall and passed through to the library. Sure enough, there they were. Delta and Epsilon were hovering over a chess table, Delta holding up this piece or that one and explaining in a low and even voice what it was for. “But why do I have to learn this?” Epsilon complained as Sigma approached closer.  
  
“My intention is to market you as a full experience. Our clientele expects a certain level of professionalism; with each successive bid, their expectations for you will rise.” Delta set down the gold piece he was holding – the rook – and stared Epsilon down, unflinching through his protestations. “I will teach you to be a courtesan, whether by your will or not.”  
  
There wasn’t going to be a better time for Sigma to announce his presence. “Best do as the man says,” he chided Epsilon. “It’s for your own good.”  
  
Epsilon turned to face him, yet reflexively pulled away at the sight of him, bringing his forearms up to cover his face. “Sigma, you’re on fire!”  
  
“What…?” And then he laughed, brushing down the fabric of the dress. “Cinna’s a genius. I swear, if he wasn’t working for another agency and I wasn’t a whore, he and I could start a legitimate business.”  
  
“How was your engagement at the District?” Delta sounded more cool and detached than ever; when Sigma tried to engage him, he found that Delta wouldn’t quite meet his gaze.  
  
“Oh, you know how it goes,” Sigma said hoarsely, dragging over a chair to the table where the chess board rested. He sat straddling the back of the chair, and his dress hiked up to his thighs, offering a salacious view – just in case anyone was paying attention, and by the trace of Delta’s eyes, someone certainly was. “Thread had me singing all night. Barely kept any tips – stingy miser’s so tight with his own whores, you can’t think that he’d let me keep any more than they do. Wasn’t even allowed to shop for clients.” He scoffed. “Probably got scared I would take his tricks. He ought to be.”  
  
“If your experience was inadequate, I am able to terminate relations with Thread and extricate our House from the District’s network with a modicum of tact,” Delta offered.  
  
“That won’t be necessary, Dee.” Even though Delta’s delivery, as always, had been professional, his sentiment was as close to personal as he was liable to get. Sigma found himself smiling reflexively; when he reached out to lay a hand on Delta’s knee, he didn’t flinch away, which was a good sign. “All I need is some of that tea you can make, with honey if you can spare it. Two days, tops, and I’ll have my voice back.”   
  
“Wait, you were out of the House?” Epsilon looked more intrigued now, leaning on his elbows to get closer to Sigma, tucking a foot underneath him so he could sit further forward on his chair. “How did they let you out?”  
  
“We have some reciprocal agreements with other places in the area,” Sigma explained. “They needed someone to cover for Katniss tonight. Either she came down with something, or the mockingjay went mute, I can’t really tell at this point.”  
  
“So, like.” Epsilon was probably grasping at any chance to get out of his courtesan lessons, but Sigma was only too happy to engage his curiosity – at least it had  _something_  to do with whoring. “They’d let me out for more than errands if I asked?”  
  
“Well, since special permissions are only approved by His Royal Highness over here,” Sigma teased, jerking his head to indicate Delta, “you’re probably never leaving. Which is too bad, really, because you could have learned a lot.” He paused to slump over onto the table, scattering a few of the chesspieces and earning a look of annoyance from Delta. So he was tired – if he wanted to rest his head on his arms, what of it? “I think they even have a kid there that’s kinda like you – turning sixteen sooner than you, though. Name’s Peeta. Works for his keep, too, baking bread.”  
  
“Wish I could’ve met him.” Epsilon sighed, his breath catching his bangs and blowing them out of his eyes. Sigma made a mental note to give the kid a haircut as soon as he got a chance – the shaggy waifish look only went so far.  
  
“It is unlikely you would have gained any additional skills from interacting with another underage whore,” Delta snipped, cutting off that line of curiosity before it went too far.  
  
That was a bit of an overreaction; Epsilon didn’t deserve to get yelled at just because he wanted to know about the world outside the mansion. “Look,” Sigma said as gently as he could to Delta, voice coming out a whisper due to his strained throat, “I know you’re a little riled up that so many of us were out of the house tonight, but don’t take it out on him.”  
  
“I am not ‘riled up’,” Delta insisted, but he nudged his knee all the same, making Sigma’s hand fall away from him. As if to completely negate his point, the way he was now putting away his chess pieces was nothing short of vicious. “On that topic of conversation, have you seen Omega?”  
  
Sigma shrugged. “He usually doesn’t come back ‘til midmorning. Why, scared something happened?”  
  
Delta shot Epsilon a venomous look, probably hoping to scare him off and keep him from listening in on this conversation, but when Epsilon didn’t cower or run away, Delta merely answered Sigma’s question. “His connections run further than this House, and the Washington estates are not known for their excessive stability.”  
  
“He only went to see the Baron’s surgeon!”  
  
Epsilon really shouldn’t have been privy to this information, but he perked up when Sigma finally mentioned Doc. “You mean that guy that does our check-ups for us?”  
  
“And sterilizes us with that weird green light from that wand of his? Yes.”  
  
“So  _that’s_  how we pay him,” Epsilon realized. “Why Omega, though? Couldn’t he have anybody?”  
  
“My theory is that Omega is perpetrating the civil unrest in that area of the country by seeking an errand outside of our strict jurisdiction,” Delta said.  
  
Sigma rolled his eyes. “Even  _he_  can’t formulate a revolution overnight.”  
  
Delta merely stared back, his gaze just on this side of unnerving. If nothing else, that got Sigma to take the situation a little more seriously. “I was loath to part with your services this evening,” he said quietly, his words only meant for Sigma’s ears, “but Thread requested you specifically, just as the surgeon requested Omega specifically. It was a risk I was forced to take against my better judgment.”  
  
“Oh, so letting me out of your sight is against your better judgment!” Sigma yelled back. He was probably only being short with Delta because he was exhausted from performing and cranky at the outcome, but this was genuinely a bone of contention between them.  
  
“Yes!” Delta justified himself vehemently, the word coming out as a hiss.  
  
At his side, Epsilon stiffened, then backed away slowly. “I’m just – I’m gonna go,” he mumbled, darting for the door to the library now that the chess implements were stored away.  
  
“I did not dismiss you!” Delta called after him. His only answer was a slammed door.  
  
“Now look what you did,” Sigma mumbled into his arms. “You frightened the baby.”  
  
“I apologize for my manner,” he said immediately. This piqued Sigma’s interest – he very rarely said he was sorry for anything, and to be on the receiving end of one of these offerings of remorse was a gift. It was one of the few reference points Sigma had for determining the depth of Delta’s emotions.  
  
Still, it shouldn’t have been him he was apologizing to. “Tell Epsilon next time you see him,” he muttered.  
  
“I also apologize,” Delta continued, as if he hadn’t heard Sigma’s complaint, “for sending you back to the District. Had you told me about the conditions there since Thread was appointed, I would have chosen someone else to go in your stead.” The flare of green fire in his eyes showed Sigma what he meant: that he hadn’t deserved to get treated that way.  
  
“It’s nothing,” he brushed it off. “I didn’t know. Besides, I got out of the House for a while.” He yawned. “And I got to see Cinna again. He even let me keep this.” He tugged on his dress, but it still didn’t come down past mid-thigh.  
  
Delta gave him a sharp glare. “At what price?”  
  
“I didn’t sleep with him this time, Dee.” Though he’d wanted to – and badly. If this suspicion was how he was going to be rewarded for his chastity, it hadn’t been worth it.  
  
Delta looked satisfied enough, though, if the flitting expression of relief that crossed his forehead was any indication. “I only ask because I am invested in maintaining our business relationships with as few complications as possible. I intend to reimburse the surgeon monetarily from now on. We must be able to withdraw from any arrangements with the utmost speed.”  
  
Things were really going south in the outside world, then, if Delta was that worried about their interactions. “Sounds really serious,” he whispered.  
  
“To treat our business as anything other than serious is a grave mistake.” His voice was gentle, not reprimanding, and he leaned over to rest a palm on Sigma’s forehead. Testing for a fever, or simply wanting to touch him and needing an excuse to – it was so hard to tell with him sometimes. “Do you require me to prepare your herbal remedy now?”  
  
“Wouldn’t hurt.” The less he talked, the more his throat burned, and he needed to be back in top form as soon as possible.  
  
Sigma heard the scrape of a chair against the floor; when he looked up, Delta was offering him a hand. Of course he wouldn’t want to endanger the books that he thought of as his with any sort of food or drink. “And you are certain that you will not become ill from this?”  
  
“I’ll be fine, Dee.” He put his hand in Delta’s, pulled himself up from where he was sitting. “Just need somebody to take care of me for a little bit.”  
  
It was rewarding for him to feel Delta’s fingers clench ever so slightly around his hand. Delta might deny having any feelings past professionalism until he was blue in the face, but Sigma knew better – it was the little moments like this that revealed his true character. Even if Delta didn’t realize it, he was possessive of Sigma, and Sigma liked to play along. No matter how many times he insisted that he was okay, Delta still seemed to think it was a better idea not to engage with the District any longer.  
  
Sigma let himself be fussed over, let Delta make him tea. The drink was strong and smelled of pine, but it was soothing for his throat. “Thanks,” he croaked out.  
  
“Please,” Delta cut across him before he could talk again, “refrain from using your voice.” In response, Sigma only reached up a hand to run a fingertip across his cheek and down the side of his face. When Delta’s eyes fixed on his, he made sure to smile in appreciation.  
  
Though they didn’t speak for the rest of the night, Delta stayed with him until the sun came up, drinking the same tea Sigma was even though he’d confessed over and over that he found it unpalatable. It was the closest to kindness Sigma could get from Delta, and so he took it for what it was worth. This was Delta turning himself inside-out and disrupting his meticulous schedule to take care of him, and Sigma was genuinely thankful from the bottom of his heart. Maybe Delta was actually capable of reciprocating his feelings after all.


	13. Part VI

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theta meets up with a client he hasn't seen in too long; Maine asks a favor of Sigma.

Theta was always told he fidgeted too much. He tried his hardest to stay still, he really did, but it never ended up happening.  
  
He tapped his toe, then sat on one of the couches in the foyer of the Teahouse to trap his foot and keep it from moving. No sooner had he sat than his fingers came out to swirl in the red velvet upholstery, reveling in the soft fuzz under his fingers. When he clasped his hands together tightly, that was when he started chewing at his lip. It didn’t help that he was twitchy whenever he had to wait, and anticipation only made it worse. Now he was flinching at any odd noise that he didn’t expect, flicking his head this way and that trying to place every bit of sound around him.  
  
It was interesting, how losing his output made him that much more attuned to input. Theta was prone to sensory overload, but it had never really overwhelmed him before he was silenced. It was almost like he was just a vessel for the world around him, and when he couldn’t let it out, he became more and more sensitive to what he was letting in.  
  
Most of his clients didn’t seem to care. They saw his silence as an incentive to do unspeakable things to him. If he couldn’t be asked about what happened, he wouldn’t tell. Except that he did. Because his clients were so liberal with their speech in front of him, he was one of the best spies in the Teahouse; Delta had come to rely on his reports, and the Councillor had even raised his rate. Of course, his clients all assumed he was being paid off not to tell.  
  
It was hard to concentrate on thoughts like that when there was so much going on around him. Even when he closed his eyes to the rich blur of color, he was still assaulted by the cloying odors of perfume over human musk, the taste of sex lingering in the air, the fabric under his palm, the laughter and shouts and murmurs of seduction swarming all around him –  
  
“Theta.”  
  
The voice was inviting, a hushed baritone, and it gave him something to focus on. It was followed by the caress of a thumbpad against the apple of his cheek, not an admonition to open his eyes but an invitation to let them be. Theta let himself fall into the rhythm of an introduction – a quick, soft kiss on his lips, a whispered “I’ve missed you” into his ear – and bit by bit, he came back to himself.  
  
When he opened his eyes, he saw a familiar face in front of him – the visage of the North of Dakota, heir to the Dakota estates. The two of them might have grown up like brothers, had circumstance not intervened. This man’s skin was lighter than his, but it was only to be expected: Theta had grown up spending his time outdoors, and so could not afford the luxury of paleness. In all other ways they were similar – same grey eyes, same ash-brown hair.  
  
By now they even shared the same body language. Theta was self-conscious of how brown and callous his hand must have seemed as he reached up to touch North’s face, but North leaned into the touch all the same, closing his eyes and breathing in the slight cologne Theta wore on his wrist before kissing the heel of his hand. When North reached down for his other hand, Theta was only too ready to give it to him, and he kissed this one, too, before he pulled Theta to his feet.  
  
North embraced him like family, arms lingering around his shoulders as he buried his nose into the crook of Theta’s neck. The contact made Theta blush; though he was a whore and was used to physical intimacy, the affection behind the action made him grasp around North’s waist just as tightly, unwilling to lose this bit of contact. North hung on fiercely, too, which told Theta that they were both thinking the same thing: that North’s twin sister, the South of Dakota, would find out about this liaison soon enough and punish the both of them to the fullest extent she could.  
  
Theta wouldn’t let North linger on it, though. He shushed his client, swiftly running his fingers through his hair before pulling away and looking into his eyes. They could forget about her. Just for tonight, but it would be long enough.  
  
North nodded, mouth set into a hard line, but his lips felt soft enough when he left a kiss on Theta’s forehead. He pulled away, but reached for Theta’s hand, and their fingers threaded together as they made their way to the staircase.  
  
\--  
  
“Come on, I know you have a mouth like a whore, I want to hear you scream like one.”  
  
Sigma loved it when his prince lost his manners. The look on Maine’s face now was feral, predatory, and the way he was shoving the phallus into him again and again, abusing the vibrating enchantment on it, was utterly savage. It was too easy to give in to that simple demand and give voice to everything that wanted to tumble out of his mouth. “I swear by every motherfucking god there is, if you don’t fuck me harder – oh,  _shit_ , like that – oh, Maine…”  
  
His prince smiled at hearing the profanity; he leaned over Sigma’s naked form and pressed a kiss to his lips, letting Sigma taste his happiness. “You’re beautiful like this,” he murmured, running a hand through Sigma’s sweat-soaked hair.  
  
Even though he should have been past blushing at compliments by now, Sigma felt his face flush. He covered for it by screaming again as Maine manipulated the thing inside him to press up against his hot spot, and he contorted in his prince’s arms. This would be his third orgasm of the night, and it struck him as unfair, since Maine had only lost it once.  
  
Maine seemed pleased enough with the arrangement, though, if the way he was grinning down at Sigma was any indication. He only seemed to get more inquisitive about what boundaries he could push with every visit to this little room. Sigma supposed it was the only place he could truly  _be_  without any outside judgment, and so he let Maine exercise his curiosity without passing judgment. Besides, it was  _fun_ , spasming with pleasure like this in Maine’s strong hold. His prince left little kisses along his neck, careful not to bite or bruise, but the pleasure was still obvious even without the marks.  
  
It was so good, so very good – too good. But he had to endure. It was his job to take this, and what an excellent career choice this had turned out to be. The sharp zing of intensity flicked over his skin as the vibration enchantment was forced to its limit. “Maine – fuck, Maine,” he babbled, past the point of making sense long ago. He wasn’t sure whether it was a warning that he was about to go past the point of no return or a chastisement that he needed to get back from the edge.  
  
“Come on, dearheart,” Maine murmured. The muscles in his arm rippled every time he moved the thing in and out of Sigma. “Shhh,” he whispered as Sigma clawed at his chest, only cradling Sigma’s head closer as he got more and more out of control. “Let go…”  
  
He’d been waiting for permission, for sanction – for acceptance. It was the pet name, though, more than the bodily sensations, that pushed him over. He was a whore, a crossdressing male whore, and he was used to being treated as the dregs of society, and yet the heir to the throne insisted that Sigma was precious to him, reaffirmed that he was dedicated to him with each of their weekly meetings. It was enough to give him an orgasmic rush, and so he gave in to the feeling, obliging his prince with as good a show as he could muster.  
  
There wasn’t much mess this time – he’d spent himself twice before – but Maine still wiped him off just as gently, easing the phallus out of him bit by bit. He chuckled when Sigma collapsed in his arms, petting the side of his face and kissing his forehead while Sigma tried to catch his breath. “Good?”  
  
“Excellent,” he panted, trying to smile with his open mouth.  
  
Maine only took it as an opportunity to take his breath away again, planting a sweet kiss on Sigma’s lips and making teasing passes with his tongue. When he pulled back, he nuzzled his nose against Sigma’s cheek. “I’m glad you talked me into that.”  
  
“Didn’t take much convincing,” Sigma teased.  
  
Maine’s laugh came out as an amused hum. “I wonder if there’s anything you absolutely wouldn’t do.”  
  
Sigma didn’t know where he found the energy to shrug. “I’ll try anything once. If I don’t like it, I don’t do it again.”  
  
“Then I wonder if there’s anything you absolutely haven’t tried.” Maine’s grin was audible in his voice, and the light graze of his fingertips against Sigma’s tingling skin was ticklish.  
  
Even though he was exhausted, Sigma smiled back, cuddling closer to Maine and twining their legs together. “Can’t think of anything off the top of my head.”  
  
“I’m surprised you can think at all.” He kissed Sigma’s cheek, then buried his nose in Sigma’s hair and breathed in deep. “Must not have done it right.”  
  
“Oh, trust me, it was perfect.” Sigma amused himself by doodling with his fingertips on Maine’s chest, tracing the lines of muscle and wondering what kind of human canvas he would make for body painting. “Why would you ask?” he blurted out – then immediately bit his lip. He hadn’t meant to question Maine’s motives, especially if it would make him feel uncomfortable expressing himself between the sheets.  
  
“Oh, no reason.” He said it lightly enough, but he wouldn’t look Sigma in the eye. Sigma stayed still, waiting for the other shoe to drop. “Just wondering what you would say no to. If I would ask.”  
  
Time to reassure him with a long, lingering kiss. When Sigma pulled back, Maine looked less worried, but the crease in his forehead was still there. “When have I ever denied you? Why would I tell you no?”  
  
“Because it might not entirely be up to you.” Sigma opened his mouth to ask another silly question, but Maine put a surprisingly soft fingertip to his lips and closed them again. “The next time I come to see you won’t be until our regular appointment next week, but I’d like it if – if it wasn’t  _just_  you.”  
  
Without the pressure of Maine’s finger against his mouth, it just hung open. Sigma knew he shouldn’t have been gaping, but Maine addled his brain with the raw intensity of his sex appeal, and so Sigma had a tendency to ask redundant questions and otherwise make a royal ass of himself in his presence. He had to clarify, though. He had to know that he hadn’t just dreamed Maine saying that. “You – you want me to bring someone else?”  
  
“Not just  _anyone_.” Maine traced a line down his spine. “I want someone  _you_  can have fun with, too. I – I know how you can get around me, and I wouldn’t mind if – if I saw you with…”  
  
“With someone else,” Sigma finished his sentence for him.  
  
“Exactly,” Maine sighed; he looked relieved to have been spared the embarrassment of saying his newest fantasy out loud. “Do you think anyone would…”  
  
Sigma dropped out of listening by the middle of Maine’s sentence. The cogs in his brain were already turning, and he was trying to find a way to make this happen like he wanted it to work out. He was creative; he could find a way. The issue was to make it as honest a lie as possible. If only he trusted Gamma to work something out with him… but he was in Omega’s back pocket, so that was no good. Perhaps Epsilon – but no, Delta would consider it underhanded.  
  
Meanwhile, Maine had been mumbling all his concerns into the general region of Sigma’s hair, running his fingers through it and combing out all the sex-tangles. Sigma had a feeling that it was more to keep his hands busy than anything else, because when those fingertips got to his scalp, he swore he could feel a nervous tremble. “Could you make it so? For me?”  
  
“Hm?” Oh. Maine had asked him a question. “Yes.” That was always the right answer when Sigma was talking to clients. Then, once he processed Maine’s request, he grinned so hard his face hurt. “Definitely.” He’d find a way. He always did.


	14. Interlude VI

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sigma has a gigantic favor to ask of Delta. The issue is finding the right time to bring it up.

Delta had been playing the same volley of seven notes for more than twenty minutes now. If he plucked on his harp any more viciously, Sigma was sure the strings would snap. The only measure of Delta’s frustration, though, was the deepening furrow between his brows as he concentrated on his sheet music.  
  
It was always a treat for Sigma to watch Delta practicing his harp. The way he had to straddle it in his chair, the way he rested his cheek against it and closed his eyes to train his fingers by reflex, the small little humming noises he would make  _sotto voce_  to trace the melody in his mind, the movement of his hands as he manipulated the instrument to make the most fantastic music Sigma had ever heard… It was truly a pity that Delta didn’t practice more often. He had musical talent, but he refused to cultivate it. In Sigma’s mind, this was the ultimate sin.  
  
Sigma always made a point of practicing his violin whenever he saw Delta sneak into the music study of the mansion. He didn’t have to practice – whatever he played stuck in his mind, and he had it under his fingers by now – so coming in here was more about being near Delta, of noticing the little things, of having the slimmest chance of getting Delta to pay attention to him. Of course, the two of them also had to keep up their skills: as courtesans, they were expected to entertain in every respect.  
  
Delta took a deep breath, his nostrils flaring, and started the piece again from the beginning. It was a simple enough melody, with small broken chords underneath it, and so it was the easiest thing for Sigma to pick up a countermelody, a harmony, and quietly coax it out of his fiddle, the liquid notes hovering in the air above Delta’s accompaniment. The only sign that Delta noticed anything different was the slight relaxation in his face; he wasn’t frowning quite so hard now. Sigma could almost see him relax control over his fingers, letting his kinesthetic memory guide him along the strings.  
  
When Delta plucked a single wrong note, though, he stopped immediately and opened his eyes. A hand left his harp, and with a finger he traced along a staff in his sheet music to find where he’d gone wrong. Sigma let him be for a moment, the silence in the room only becoming more stiff and stifling as time wore on, and eventually he had to make a noise or he was going to snap the neck of his violin.  
  
It was almost like flirting with Delta, the way Sigma teased a folk song out of his fiddle. He let his bow scratch just that littlest bit, adding a country accent to the melody, but it wasn’t until he added a few grace notes and ornaments that Delta turned his attention to him. “You know this one,” Sigma reassured him softly, never stopping the sweeping movements of his bow. It would help him get his confidence back, get him to stop thinking about it so much and just go with the flow of the music.  
  
“Traditionally, that melody is played on a wind instrument,” Delta pointed out, but his green eyes sparkled all the same.  
  
“We’ll make do,” Sigma said, waggling his eyebrows at Delta over the bridge of his violin.  
  
Delta’s sigh was one of exasperation, but Sigma knew him well enough to know that it was more of an endearment than a chastisement. The harp accompaniment to this folk melody was simple enough – Delta had probably learned it when he was in single digits – and so, after only a few moments, it turned into a duel between the two string instruments, Sigma’s incidentals turning into entirely new melodies, Delta’s subtle changes introducing different chord progressions. “Why do you insist on practicing with me?” Delta asked him as he let Sigma take control of their music for a moment.  
  
It was hard to shrug with a violin up to his chin, but Sigma managed. “I like to watch you think.” He finished the tune with a little riff and some simple chords before taking his bow away from the strings. “I don’t want to distract you – you can get back to practicing now.” Actually, Sigma’s whole reason for sneaking in here was banking on the fact that Delta wouldn’t be paying attention to him so much as to his music.  
  
Delta immediately went back to the same seven-note riff he couldn’t seem to perfect. Sigma rolled his eyes, thankful that Delta was concentrating too much on his sheet music to catch his body language. Pluck, pluck, pluck, pluck, twang, and if Delta was a curser he’d have let one out, but as it was he just bit his lip. Sigma thought he was adorable when he did that.  
  
He wasn’t just in here for fun, though – this was a business venture. “Hey, can I ask you something?”  
  
“You may ask me any personal query you wish.”  
  
Good. Sigma grinned. Delta was too thoroughly distracted by his music to really pay attention to the particulars right now. “If I told you,” he started slowly, deliberately phrasing his question in the conditional, “that Maine asked me to bring someone else to with me to his next visit, what would you think?”  
  
“I make no ethical judgments about our clients’ proclivities.” Pluck, pluck, twang. Delta muted the strings, tried again. Pluck, pluck, pluck, twang.  
  
So far, so good. Sigma started to play again lazily, letting each long, soft note hover in the air. “He’s asked me to bring a friend.”  
  
Delta looked thoroughly nonplussed, but that was probably because his face was too screwed up with concentration. “Do you wish for me to make a note in his file?”  
  
“No, no, it’s not like that. It’s just…” Sigma sighed for effect, playing a mournful set of minor thirds. “He’s the crown prince. Do you think…” A calculated pause, and he tried to look demure when he gazed at Delta from under his long lashes, even though the effect was slightly offset by letting his legs fall a little open, making his linen pants bunch up around his hips and groin. “I know you have experience… what do you think?”  
  
Delta still didn’t look up from his harp. He was struggling more with the notes now that he was engaged in a conversation with Sigma, but he was still trying to concentrate. So cute. “Why are you discussing this matter with me?”  
  
“I’m at my wit’s end, Dee.” Sigma let his violin fall, resting his elbows on his knees and tracing little patterns in the carpet with the tip of his bow. “I don’t know who else to talk to.”  
  
“Theta.”  
  
Sigma laughed, trying to make it sound self-disparaging. “Maine deserves better than a mute, no matter how well-trained he is. Besides, Theta’s been jumping at his own shadow ever since North visited.”  
  
“Gamma.”  
  
“I don’t trust him,” Sigma insisted. “He’s in Omega’s back pocket. It’s too dangerous for me to justify the risks. Besides, knowing him, he’d just stand us up.”  
  
“The twins.”  
  
Sigma shook his head. “Too many dicks on the dancefloor. They’re a package deal, and Maine only wants one extra.”  
  
“Aleph, Beth, Gimel –”  
  
If Delta was just going through the entire Hebrew alphabet, Sigma was going to have to shut him up. “They don’t have the experience,” he explained.  
  
“Any other Greek agents would do just as well.”  
  
“They don’t have that prestigious best-in-House ranking,” Sigma said softly, keeping his voice at a seductive pitch. “You’re the best. Maine deserves the best.”  
  
A terrible jangling noise came from the harp; Delta had tightened his hands into fists, and the pads of his fingers had plucked every string they’d been resting on. Sigma heard Delta take a deep breath, and then his shaking hands dampened the harp. Those green eyes took in every aspect of him, and Sigma felt pinned under Delta’s stare. “This was the Meta’s idea?”  
  
Correcting Delta on his use of the name would have undone all the progress Sigma had been able to make. As it was, he tried to hide his wince. “Yes.” Even though Sigma had a vested interest in how this was going to pan out, the original idea had come from Maine.  
  
This seemed to satisfy Delta; he turned his attention back to his music. Pluck, pluck, twang. Pluck, pluck, pluck, pluck, twang. “When will this be taking place?”  
  
Now that Delta wasn’t scrutinizing him so closely, Sigma let himself smile openly. Delta had just given in, even if he didn’t realize it quite yet. “Maine’s next appointment. Tuesday.”  
  
“You waited two days to discuss this with me.” Twang, twang, and Delta’s frown deepened.  
  
“There was never a good time,” Sigma snapped defensively. It was true – he hadn’t seen Delta this distracted in ages, and it was excellent timing that he could take advantage of it.  
  
Delta only sighed; his nose was still in his music. “I will have scant time to prepare.”  
  
“That’s all right,” Sigma said quickly, his voice soothing. He reached out to lay a hand on Delta’s knee. “You’re the best of us. If anyone can do this, it’s you.”  
  
The flattery worked; though it might have been imperceptible to anyone else, a slight blush was now coloring Delta’s cheeks. He was still fumbling his way through that seven-note passage, though, and so his expression turned back to concentration soon enough.  
  
Sigma could have cried with relief. He had imagined this conversation going south at so many points that he was overwhelmed with gratitude that this had gone through the way he had hoped. He put bow to violin again, bringing out the seven notes Delta was having so much difficulty with. Delta mirrored him perfectly, and he smiled in a way that only Sigma could catch when he turned his music back to the beginning of the piece.  
  
They didn’t talk for the rest of their practice session. They didn’t have to: their instruments kept the conversation alive. By the time they had finished putting in their hours, Sigma’s hands were cramping, and so it was a relief to feel Delta’s hand slip into his own, fingertips warm and calloused from his harp strings, as they made their way back to their quarters. “Your hands are injured,” he said quietly, as if he needed an excuse to touch him.  
  
“Must have lost track of time.” Sigma squeezed his hand as they walked. “I don’t normally play for that long.”  
  
“Neither do I.” Delta stopped in the doorway to the Greek wing, pulling Sigma a little closer to keep him out of the hallway traffic. And to Sigma’s surprise, Delta looked him straight in the eye and repeated himself. “Neither do I.”


End file.
